New Ashgate Gallery champions the best of contemporary art and craft providing an unparalleled resource in Farnham, Surrey and beyond
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New season of exhibitions and events
Known for selecting art and craft of the highest quality, the gallery team has handpicked artists from across the UK. Our exhibitions present glass, ceramics, jewellery, sculpture, print and painting.
Rising Stars 2021: The Catalogue (Digital Version)
We curate a programme of 25 annual exhibitions and events, working in partnership with local and national organisations. Visit us to view free exhibitions in the Pavilion, Balcony and Maker in Focus Galleries & enjoy the affordable Craft Collection, perfect for unique gifts.
Explore our curated online shop.
David Mayne, The Farnham Sculpture, detail
16 December 2020 to 16 December 2021
Craft Town Public Art Commission: David Mayne: The Farnham Sculpture
Visit us to see the Farnham Sculpture, the new public art commission in Waggon Yard, celebrating the World Craft Town Farnham.
Proposals were invited in 2019 for a public sculpture that is inspired by the heritage and tradition of crafts in Farnham practised in the area during the Roman period: the district was known as a pottery centre due to its supply of gault clay, oak woodland for fuel and good communication links. Kilns dating as far as AD 100 have been found in the area. Today, Farnham hosts a remarkable number of craft institutions and makers. The sculpture aims to enhance the public knowledge and understanding of the heritage while bringing pleasure to the community and visitors alike.
In early 2020, the local community voted to choose from three shortlisted proposals. David Mayne was awarded the Craft Town Public Art Commission. David's Farnham Sculpture received 58% of the public vote.
The Farnham Sculpture celebrates the oak tree - something which was abundant in the area while also links to the history and heritage of Farnham. It is fabricated from steel, bronze and oak and the bronze acorn was first modelled in clay. Imagery refers to the oak forests that surrounded Farnham.
The project involved working with local schools and the community in the design for a sense of shared ownership with the local community in the final artwork. There are 19 designs and messages in the Farnham Sculpture that were provided by local children and the schools in either the Zoom sessions with David Mayne or the Draw a Sculpture competition. This includes two prize winners which are carved into the surface of the oak.
David Mayne is a sculptor of national repute who produces work for galleries, public spaces and the domestic environment. His artwork has been commissioned throughout the country and can be found in town centres, rural locations, public buildings and private homes and gardens. Over the past 30 years, David has developed his work from raw assemblage with found objects to the much more refined pieces he now creates.
The Farnham Sculpture is supported by Arts Council England and the related events are supported by the Farnham Town Council and South Street Trust.
We would like to thank Arts Council England, Farnham Town Council, our steering group, consisting of Charlotte Hall (Waverley Borough Council), Vikki Leedham (Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden), Sue Farrow (Farnham Public Art Trust), Sarah Carrington Hubbard (public art consultant) and Dr Outi Remes (New Ashgate Gallery). Also, many thanks to our craft town partners and the local community and schools for their interest and taking actively part in the project.
Click for further information and how to book for the community events
Laura McKinley, Avolio V and VI
Bruce Marks, Yellow Grey Birds, photo: A. Cotterill | Peter Layton, Circle of Hope
24 April to 31 July 2021
Glass Stars: Peter Layton, Bruce Marks, Laura McKinley and Vezzini & Chen: Exceptional Talent from the London Glassblowing Studio
Due to popularity, the artwork is now availble until 31 July.
The London Glassblowing studio has nurtured and produced some of the world's leading glass artists and continues to do so to this day. The exhibition presents sculpture by four of its star glass artists:
Artist, pioneer, mentor, Peter Layton is one of the founding fathers of British studio glass. He discovered the art while teaching ceramics in the US in the 1960s, and has played a major part in elevating glass from an industrial medium to a highly collectable art form. Most importantly, he gave it a home in the UK.
Peter started with a small glass studio in the Highlands of Scotland while relying on pottery to ensure a living. However, the big city called, as did glass - it needed more dedicated champions. In 1976 he opened the first London Glassblowing Workshop in an old towage works on the Thames at Rotherhithe and later on moved to Bermondsey.
Peter takes inspiration from his environment, natural or manmade: a stone wall on a snowy day, the London skyline, or works by great painters. From a mere detail, a flash of a Klimt orange or a slick of oil on the Thames, he creates painterly works with a masterly use of colour. Throughout his career, he has been courted by major art institutions, commercial buyers and private collectors. His work is held in various museums in the UK, Europe and America, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK.
Bruce Marks' Birds have attracted an avid and enthusiastic public following. Bruce has achieved deceptively simple abstract forms, which allude to bird shapes. He says: I am a long-time admirer of the sculptor Brancusi. I envy his ability to capture the essence of his subject, creating a purity of form with minimal detail, whilst projecting profound presence. Bruce's response has been to strip back his forms to achieve an exquisite simplicity retaining a definite bird-like quality.
Laura McKinley's fascination for glass as a creative medium stems from its capacity to constantly alter her initial thoughts and expectations. The spontaneity of the hot material demands instant visual judgments that give rise to shifts in her ideas. These allow her to make tangible her explorations of volume, scale and the random interplay of forms. Serendipity and the unexpected often point the way to the next starting point for making. An element of her inspiration is the Italian technique Incalmo. This involves the hot joining of two separately blown glass bubbles of different colour to form one piece, the join then becoming invisible. Once cold, the fluidity of these objects is interrupted by cutting to expose voids which enable the viewer to see both the internal and exterior spaces. The varying thickness of glass and polished angled surfaces create ever-changing effects of light and shadow, a characteristic that is exploited to create an environment of illusion. Laura's work is an invitation to engage with the tranquil beauty of the incidental.
Vezzini & Chen's work is defined by the artful marriage of hand carved ceramics and blown glass. The collections tread a fine line between functional and conceptual, with the design duo creating sculptural hand crafted lighting, glassware, interior accessories and installation pieces.
Lisa Mortimer, Citrus Brooch
1 May to 31 July 2021
Summer Craft Collection 2021: Craft with Local Heart
The Summer Craft Collection presents a range of unique, local craft that you won't find anywhere else. Treat yourself to something new for you or your home or buy gifts for your loved ones. Pop in, browse and shop away from the crowds. You'll be supporting a local gallery and small creative artist businesses if you do, as well as finding something special.
We are delighted present a new collection of ceramics by Lindy Barletta, Peter Beard, Rose Dickinson, Alice Funge, Ingrid Saag and Bridget Timoney and jewellery by Olivia Barthe, Emma Lavery and Lisa Mortimer. Other makers include Jennifer Shellard, the textile designer, and Helen Brown, Charlotte Cornish, Gavin Dobson and Shirley Watson for limited edition prints.
Elizabeth Campbell
12 to 26 June 2021
Elements Redefined: The Surrey Guild of Craftsmen
The exhibition is rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Please note the new dates.
This exhibition will showcase the excellent design and craftsmanship that is the trademark of the work of members of The Surrey Guild of Craftsmen. Guild members are selected professional designer makers of contemporary and traditional applied arts. Their work is distinguished by fine craftsmanship and innovative design.
The Guild aims to raise public awareness of the quality and diversity of the work created by local designer makers through a programme of exhibitions and craft events at venues around the county and beyond. The members also run the Surrey Guild Craft Gallery in Milford, Surrey, where a wide variety of individual members' work can be seen and purchased.
Work will encompass many of the media employed by members including glass, ceramics, textiles, mixed media, leather, jewellery and enamelling
Further information and images:
Mavis Walker, Guild Treasurer & Exhibition Organiser for Elements, 01276 471124 | Nancy Shafee, Chairman, 01483 282471.
The Surrey Guild of Craftsmen
Angela Brittain, Sunkissed Nose-sandy Toes
12 June to 24 July 2021
Angela Brittain: Girl Power
Angela Brittain is an Abstract Expressionist, influenced and inspired by movement and colour. Angela paints the body language of her sitters. She approaches a canvas with a direct idea of the composition, palette and artistic fundamentals but comes from a place of emotion where a feeling is expressed in terms of harmony and discord. As Angela applies the colours that best express the feelings, the form of the work begins to emerge: her figures and places are created, and a painting emerges. Her work has evolved through a long process - from her traditional training in graphic design eventually emerging as the work we see today.
The viewer finds elements that they can relate to in the paintings. Angela tells a story but invites the viewer fill in the blanks. There is no right or wrong, just each individual's interpretation. Angela's favourite painting is always the most recent one she's completed. It is the closest to her heart at that moment. They may not all be masterpieces, but the love is there all the same in that moment in time.
12 June to 24 July 2021
Ken Eardley: Maker in Focus
Ken Eardley produces a range of distinctive, hand built functional ceramics. His work is much loved for its distinctively retro patterns, with designs reminiscent of Scandinavian folk art.
This highly collectable ceramicist started with a background in textiles, he then moved on to create a distinctly fun and graphic range of functional ceramics for kitchens and interiors including mugs, jugs, vases, plates and bowls together with a new range of lamps. All his pieces are hand-made glazed earthenware and are made using press-moulds with hand-cut stencil decoration which are then fired three times.
Ken's artworks are very striking and highly popular and reflect his sense of humour. They make us smile!
Graham Dean, Small Solace, 2021, 39x29cm, watercolour on arches
12 June to 24 July 2021
Graham Dean: Small Size Only
Graham Dean is a painter of identity. For Graham, the body is a 'holding-pen of emotions'. His protagonists are the receptacles of these emotions and memories, witnesses of the human condition and the complex human interaction with the world. His painting essentially becomes an investigation of the surfaced and the subconscious.
Using what he refers to as reverse archaeology, Graham revitalises the traditional watercolour technique: contrasting layers of paint are applied sequentially on thick handmade Indian paper, each sheet undergoes a process of tearing and overlapping to create a final composition, and correlates to the multilayering of the epidermis shielding human body. Graham masterfully uses thickness of the paper and sensual veils of watercolour, the transparency of the media. Artist's painterly vision and savoir-faire of the material and the process helps him to create evocative painted atmospheres in which his protagonists exist and interact, catching and escaping our gaze, as if suspended in watery and dreamy alternative worlds.
Pete Jackman, Vestjardavegur, pastel on paper
Peter Hayes, Raku Disc
12 June to 24 July 2021
Pete Jackman: Icelandic Horizons with Sculpture by Peter Hayes (Part 2)
Pete Jackman explores landscapes and objects within the landscape in a semi abstract form.
The Icelandic landscape has a pristine, raw and dynamic quality, looking brand new and ancient at the same time. It is physically and visually challenging and this informs Pete's mark making and colour palette.
Pete's recent work is concerned with the horizon. This is the dominant feature of the Icelandic landscape where the views to the horizon are not interrupted by small scale features such as trees and buildings; creating an impression that the landscape is unapproachable.
Pete reacts to particular places and forms within the landscape. It is developed from sketches, photographs and memories, which through stages of drawings and over drawing using layers or various media tend to become more abstract as the work evolves. Each work becomes its own reference, where the original source image may just be represented in the form of a particular shape, texture or colour.
The drawings are created with layers of graphite, soft pastels, and chalks, these layers may then be cut through to expose earlier marks, with further overdrawing and colouring to create a more complex surface, a similar process of layering is also involved in the paintings, but due to the medium the emphasis is on overpainting and glazes.
Pete's paintings are presented with master ceramist Peter Hayes, known for his timeless, distinctive style that stems from Raku firing and the way which he submerges his sculptures in the flowing river beside his studio, or sends them to Cornwall to be washed in the sea for months at a time. The water washes minerals such as copper and metal oxides into the basic white clay with which Hayes works, creating a characteristic green-blue "blush" in his sculptures along with random elements that make every piece unique. Hayes' work is finished by waxing and polishing.
Su Jameson, See No Evil, ceramic, 26x13x8cm, 2021
12 June to 24 July 2021
Su Jameson: Small Stories
Su Jameson's hand built ceramic sculptures strive to create exchanges, both physical and emotional. Drawn from personal experiences, interactions and observations her work explores human strength and fragility, communication, and belonging. At once particular and universal the work invites contemplation and reinterpretation.
Expression is sought through form and surfaces created through various stoneware clays; porcelain, black, and crank, that is impressed to create textures then manipulated into structures using slab and direct modelling techniques. Finally, inspired by earth colours; slips, oxides and glazes are applied.
Su won the Surrey Artist of the Year competition in 2017.
27 June 2021
Family Craft Workshop: Flower Power with artist Sonia Percival
Picnic in the Park, Gostrey Meadows
Sunday 27 June 2021, 12-6pm
Free | open to all ages | all materials provided
Free BOOKING to Picnic in the Park is required
NOTE: this event is now SOLD OUT.
Join us to celebrate Flower Power with Sonia Percival, Farnham based artist.
Our activity will use recycled paper, coloured by Sonia to build unique flower structures that capture colour and texture; inspired by our natural surroundings and local distinctiveness.
The activity is open to all ages, and you will go home with a crafted flower which could become a brooch, a sculpture or even a Frida Kahlo inspired head dress. Find your inner flower power and choose your 'Flower Power' colours with a modern twist of orange, yellow, ochre, lime green and neon pops.
Flower Power: Take-Away Packs
If you can't make it on 27th June, come and collect your Flower Power craft pack from the New Ashgate Gallery after the event - all materials provided. Subject to availability.
Organised by New Ashgate Gallery; supported by Farnham Town Council.
Dan Jones
6 to 24 July 2021
Dan Jones: Home
Dan Jones explores his outdoor locale near to where he lives in northeastern Hampshire including natural spaces which have always been close to him, both geographically and emotionally.
With artworks produced during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the national lockdown in the UK, Dan calls for a reassessment of what we consider our 'home' to be. This may be our permanent place of residence, where we grew up, where are families are or a place further afield in which we feel a strong sense of belonging. With the national lockdowns and travel restrictions, we have been encouraged to consider our most immediate natural spaces for our physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing, or to recall those places we cannot reach, both reassessing or reaffirming where our emotional connections lie.
From small, intimate studies on board, to large, immersive canvases using a range of media and an eclectic use of styles and mark making, Dan explores a deeply personal connection to his immediate locale and places he finds himself going back to time and time again, whilst attempting to capture the essence of the natural spaces in northeastern Hampshire.
Paula Reason, machine embroidery on quilted silk background
31 July to 18 September 2021
Paula Reason: A Love Letter to My Father
Paula Reason's quilted sculptural installation is a portrait of her father's room at a scale of 1:5. It is an investigation into how the personalities become embedded into our surrounding in the selection of artefacts that the artist and her father use and how they take comfort from this. Paula's quilting technique figuratively wraps her father in his familiar surroundings when he was in hospital.
Paula's experience as an architect forms the foundations for her artistic practice. She works with textiles and paint. The specific qualities of this medium provides an almost unlimited way to explore and express the relationships that we have with the built environment.
Paula's bespoke work was featured in Collect 2020 with a large sculptural silk panels provided an insight into the relationship that three established craftspeople have with their studio spaces.
Paula is also accepting commissions for small to large-scale site-specific artwork for the home, commercial spaces and museum and gallery exhibits. She also offers architectural and interior design services. Contact the gallery for further information.
Christina Taylor-Smith, Leap for Joy, mixed media relief print (Lino-stencil-metal leaf)
Jacqueline James, Colour Mixing, hand woven rug
31 July to 18 September 2021
Weave and Waves: Christina Taylor-Smith and Jacqueline James
Our summer exhibition brings together two artists who are inspired by rich colour and geometric patterns, lines and rhythms. Their work is an outstanding example of traditional techniques that are combined with contemporary design style.
Christina Taylor-Smith combines line and colour to evoke aspects and rhythms found both in nature and man-made structures. The richness and depth of colour combined with the beautiful embossing gives the work an interesting surface. The focus is on the essence of things with an awareness of the fragile and transient quality of a moment in time. The lines are interconnecting, easily broken, lost and found. The built-up of consecutive lines acquire a density and rhythm which can be fragile, flowing or appear like the layers in strata. In her most recent work, Christina has started to incorporate metal leaf to emphasise the preciousness of nature in its jewel- like quality. This adds yet another dimension in the way light plays and is reflected on the surface of the work.
Jacqueline James is an award-winning weaver who specialises in making individually designed hand dyed and woven rugs and wall hangings for distinctive interiors. Inspiration for new designs comes from everywhere, but she is particularly inspired by the colours and patterns found in nature, landscapes and architecture.
As a rug weaver Jacqueline is part of the International Weaving Community; thus, it continues an important heritage craft tradition. Her work is found in public and private collections in the UK and USA. Each weaving is exclusively made in Jacqueline's York studio using British rug wool, cotton and linen.
Paul Nelson, Footpath to Waverley Abbey, oil on panel
End of the Day. Waverley Abbey, Farnham, oil on panel
31 July to 18 September 2021
Paul Nelson: Rural Rides (after William Cobbett)
Paul Nelson started to think about a series of paintings broadly relating to William Cobbett's book 'Rural Rides' about 10 years ago. Paul explores Cobbett's description of his rides through Farnham and on to Winchester, making numerous references to the geology and soil types of the region for this defined agricultural practices in the 19 Century Britain. Paul's series of 'Rural Rides' explores the 'terroir' (to coin a term from the wine world) of that landscape: the colours and textures of the rural landscape. Paul uses the quiet reflections in water, the texture of natural forms and the drama of a sunlit landscape to create a 'theatre' of observation.
Paul returned to the theme of landscape two years ago following visits to Scotland. He is fascinated by the character and environment of rivers. Topography and 'place' is important but it is only equal to his role as translator and poet.
Paul's work has clear roots in British Romantic landscape painting by artists such as Turner, Samuel Palmer, Holman Hunt and Helen Allingham. Latterly he has been enjoying the work European Classical and Baroque artists particularly Nicolas Poussin and his 'Landscape with a Man Killed by a Snake' that inspired the painting 'Looking towards Frensham Great Pond'. In this unexpected relationship, the viewer sees the ambiguity of the fallen trees in the dappled sunlight in a kind of natural 'theatre' that lasts as long as it takes for the clouds to pass. In Paul's work, an artist controls the foundations of a painting but the painting takes on its own identity - it is this compelling dialogue that keeps Paul painting.
Sculpture created with children
Pippa Ward with her installation at Farnham Town Council
21 August to 6 November 2021
Pippa Ward: Say it with Plastic
Artist in Residence: 21 August - 18 September 2021
Community workshops - free admission, contact the gallery for details
Exhibition: Two Years On: 25 September - 6 November 2021
We are delighted to invite Pippa Ward for a month long residency that consists of a series of community workshops run by Pippa, using discarded plastics.
Working with Farnham children, families and schools, Pippa will inspire, educate and raise awareness of plastics in our environment, whilst having fun creating a new artwork using plastic tops, bags and drinks cartoons with participants. The residency and the workshops are followed by Pippa's solo exhibition, presenting a new body of artwork and celebrating her time as the Surrey Artist of the Year.
Pippa's work is focused on the environment, with an interest in our use and relationship with single use, found plastics; bags, bottle tops and beach plastic. She looks at man's inevitable impact on nature by using these materials. Pippa works with these ubiquitous and disposable materials and objects that do untold damage to our environment if discarded and used carelessly. Plastic's unimaginably long lifespan, coupled with how casually we, as a society treat it, becomes a perfect metaphor for our almost blind overconsumption of the material.
In the words of philosopher Roland Barthes the essence of an object has something to do with the way it turns into trash, possibly meaning that once an object has been discarded, and thus absolved of its function, its form becomes brightly visible out of its original place and freed from its status as a commodity. Once an object is no longer treated in terms of its use/value, the 'thingness' and 'unwantedness' of an item intensifies. This is when Pippa becomes interested in it.
Pippa acquires plastic by visiting beaches regularly, particularly following a storm. The processes that follow involve gathering, manipulating and arranging of materials - using mindful taxonomy and grouping to create arrangements that, at times, speak of scientific plates and classification, or of marine narratives and environments that Pippa encounters. She looks at the effect man-made and natural materials have on each other, and particularly man's impact on nature. With newly formed awareness of the abundance of plastic in our seas, we now have a love/hate relationship with the substance. We rely on plastic and at times we desire these convenient single use items, even though we know the damage they are causing, and continue to cause. The pieces are found on the beach, can be seen as a 'tidemark' where the sea has deposited minute nurdles, bullet casings, tampon applicators, bottle tops and toys - all plastic. They can be wedged between rocks or blown up into the sand dunes, but they are becoming a part of our earth - literally. These are becoming our future fossils and relics, which, if arranged carefully, can be evocative of coral reefs or seaside settings, sometimes mimicking the natural world at first, beautiful to the eye, before the 'reader' sees what they truly are.
The Surrey Artist of the Year project is supported by Patricia Baines Trust and the workshops programme by Farnham South Street Trust.
25 September to 6 November 2021
Surrey Artist of the Year 2021
Come and vote for your favourite Surrey artist and support the local talent with us.
The Surrey Artist of the Year competition is a partnership between the New Ashgate and the Surrey Artists Open Studios to celebrate the wealth of creative talent in Surrey. Starting in 2009; this aspirational exhibition offers a collective of local quality arts and craft as voted for by the public during open studio visits. The top scoring artists come together for a programme of events. There is a wide variety of artworks on show, including different materials and techniques such as painting, printmaking, glass, textiles and mixed media.
Again, during the exhibition, until 22h October, 12noon, members of the public are encouraged to vote for an artist; and the artist with the most votes from public and judging panel, is named Surrey Artist of the Year 2021 on 22nd at 7pm. The winner receives a bursary of £1,500, a solo show at the New Ashgate Gallery and a complementary Winner's Stand at the Surrey Contemporary Art Fair.
The season includes workshops for adults, families and artists - please contact us for information.
The competition is organised by New Ashgate Gallery in partnership with the Surrey Open Studios. It is supported by the Patricia Baines Trust and Contemporary Art Fairs. The Surrey Life magazine, which has a monthly section dedicated to the local art scene, is the official media partner of the competition.
