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 2020: The Catalogue (free digital version)
Rising Stars 2020: The Catalogue (order a hard copy)
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 affodable Craft Collection, perfect for unique gifts.
Explore our curated online shop.
Yo Thom ceramics
11 January to 29 February 2020
Maker in Focus: Yo Thom: Clothes for Food
Yo Thom's work is thrown and hand-built functional stoneware with influence from both UK and Japan, but mostly from Japanese food culture. She creates tableware, which will become clothes for food, as Rosanjin once said. It performs as a background for the food you serve as yet retains strong personality. The harmony of her tableware with food is the essence of Yo's ceramics.
Ruth Taylor, Running Wild, oil
11 January to 29 February 2020
Ruth Taylor: Colouring in the Landscape
Ruth Taylor trained as a textile designer at West Surrey College of Art and Design in the early 80s and after many years working with fabric in many forms she discovered a love of oil painting which has become her main form of artistic expression. The influence of her work with textiles is evident in her work, her love of colour, texture and pattern is as much an inspiration as the English countryside. Ruth loads the surface with paint, moving it around with brushes, combs and even her hands looking to capture a particular light or the effect of the weather and seasons on the land.
This exhibition focuses on Ruth's work on landscapes: the volume of the colours is turned up high, the marks are exaggerated and the views are mystical. However, beneath the volume and marks, there is the framework of the English landscape; whether it is a Sussex marsh, a deserted beach or the South Downs of her childhood. As Ruth says: I paint the images of this land that have imprinted themselves in my mind over the years.
Window by Manuela Kagerbauer
11 January to 29 February 2020
Craft Town Public Art Commission: Public Voting to Select the Winning Proposal
We are delighted to invite the local community to vote and select the winning proposal for a new Craft Town Public Art commission.
Proposals were invited during the autumn for a public sculpture / artwork that is inspired by the heritage and tradition of crafts in Farnham. The artwork will celebrate crafts that have been 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 major institutions and makers who dedicate time, resources and creative energies to sustaining craft as one of the great defining features of place here. The sculpture aims to enhance the public knowledge and understanding of the heritage while also bringing pleasure to the community and visitors alike.
The sculpture will be located next to a busy car park in the courtyard of the grade II listed building of the New Ashgate Gallery Trust in Waggon Yard.
The shortlisted artists are Walter Bailey, Manuela Kagerbauer and David Mayne and were selected by a panel with strong public art and sculpture expertise, including Charlotte Hall (Waverley Borough Council), Vikki Leedham (Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden), Sue Farrow (Farnham Public Art Trust), Sarah Carrington Hubbard (freelance public art consultant) and Dr Outi Remes (New Ashgate Gallery). We would also like to thank our craft town partners, Rebecca Skeels, Alison Clarke (Surrey Hill Arts) and Nicky Lawrence (University for the Creative Arts) for their support and advice.
The proposals will be exhibited at the New Ashgate Gallery from 11 January to 29 February and the public will be invited to vote and select the winning proposal - to be announced on 7 February. Also join us for presentations by the artists on 20 January, 2pm (free but booking is required).
The sculpture will be installed in October 2020 - during the craft month in Farnham.
The public art commission is supported by Arts Council England.
Jacky Paynter, Behind Porthmeor
11 January to 29 February 2020
Jacky Paynter: Returning to Look
Jacky Paynter's work is based on her experiences in St Ives throughout the year: wild weather and stormy seas, sunny days and rugged walks. Jacky finds inspiration in the working history that makes St Ives such a unique place, and in how today's pristine holiday cottages were once home to the poorest fishermen and their families. Information from sketches and the odd photographic reference are often the starting points. Jacky seeks out unusual viewpoints and compositions. Her paintings, in acrylic, oil or mixed media, capture the atmosphere of St Ives and show her love of colour, texture, line and drawing.
Born and educated in East London, Jacky moved to Cornwall at the age of 16. She studied Graphic Design at Redruth School of Art, which is now part of Falmouth University. Returning to London at the age of 20, she worked in small design groups before moving into publishing. Jacky became an Art Director for Walker Books (Children's Books) and enjoyed working with many talented illustrators. Art in some form has always been a significant part of Jacky's life. Now retired, she is able to develop her painting style, attending Morley College in London and various workshops at the St Ives School of Painting. She recently completed the Porthmeor Programme. Although she now lives in Hampshire, Jacky appreciates the deep connection she has to Cornwall, returning as often as possible to look and respond again.
Danniella Wilde, Anemones
18 January to 18 April 2020
Spring Craft Collection: Crafts with the Local Heart
Our specially selected collection of ceramics, jewellery and textiles. All items are beautifully hand-crafted by some of the UK's most talented designer-makers: they are perfect pieces for any home or to give as beautiful gifts if you can bear to part with them!
The makers include: Justine Allison, Debbie Barber, Theo Brooks, Holly Burton, Samantha English, Jaroslav Hrustalenko, Justine Jenner, Silvia K, Bérangère Noyau, Sarah Packington, Alison Proctor, Miranda Peckitt, Jacqui Ramrayka, Tamar Rose, Tiffany Scull, Carolyn Tripp, Clare Underwood and Danniella Wilde.
Mitch Pilkington, Two Pink Point Sculptural Vessels
7 March to 18 April 2020
One Year On: Mitch Pilkington: Winner of Rising Stars 2019
Drawn to the organic, natural forms of coastal forays in her home of North Devon, and the worn, dry spirals of weathered conch shells, gathered on warm Caribbean beaches, Mitch communicates the sculptural qualities of these influences. Her ceramics are instinctively handformed in an emotionally intuitive and mindful process using methods such as coiling and pinching. Each piece, a vessel for her emotional journey. Working in grogged stoneware clay, with a palate of coastal shades, and using various stains, slips and oxides, she enhances the natural stone-like quality of the clay.
For Mitch, hand-building is what drives her passion to create her sculptural ceramics. The rhythmic, meditative and mindful process of coiling, and the many hours scraping and sculpting, provide her with the emotional salve to the stresses of life's everyday challenges. Each piece is an emotional response to the clay, hosting their calming solice.
Within her work, Mitch tries to create a haptic aesthetic that communicates a sense of calm, serenity and connection.
Hannah Staber, David
7 March to 18 April 2020
Rising Stars 2020
Rising Stars is a platform for some of the most exciting new crafts by emerging makers in crafts, design and applied arts. This curated, selling exhibition will be showcased at the New Ashgate Gallery and also include a programme of makers' professional development events and a £500 prize. The participants are graduating students, recent graduates or at a pivotal moment in their early career due to changed circumstances.
Many of the graduating makers are at cross roads: they have a full portfolio of fabulous ideas, but are yet to establish their business skills and a network of collectors. Rising Stars offers just the right platform, and for many, it is a starting point for an exceptional career. Rising Stars is an opportunity for both makers as well as art collectors who wish to support and collect work by future stars.
Following an open call with 97 applications, 26 makers of exceptional talent were selected by a panel of craft experts, Dr Outi Remes (New Ashgate Gallery), Sharon Ting (University for the Creative Arts) and Debra Allman (UCA). They are Darren Ball, Sandy Buchanan, Niamh Duddy, Jack Durling, Fran Fell, Beth Gates, Rhiannon Gwyn, Faye Hall, Abeer Kayani, Joshua Kerley, Antigone Lentzos, Rebecca Oldfield, Archana Pathak, Rebecca Perry, Laura Plant, Irina Prolygina, Jane Sarre, Jane Sedgwick, Ralph Shuttleworth, Hannah Staber, Olivia Taylor, Hermione Thomson, Nikole Tursi, Claire Walton and Katie Watson.
Rising Stars is organised by the New Ashgate Gallery and supported by the Billmeir Charitable Trust. We work in partnership with the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham.
7 March to 18 April 2020
The Pastel Society
We are delighted to present new work by the members of the Pastel Society. Encouraging the use of pastel within the contemporary art world, the Society was founded in 1898. The members are professional artists living and working in this country and overseas. Membership is granted through a strict assessment of technical skill, originality, innovation and enthusiasm.
The exhibition will present new painting by Tony Allen, Victor Ambrus, Liz Bakwill, Matthew Draper, Jill Jeffrey and Jan Munro.
Elliot Walker, Still Life
Bruce Marks, Yellow Grey Birds, photo: A. Cotterill
25 April to 13 June 2020
Exceptional talent from the London Glassblowing Studios
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:
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.
Elliot Walker is one of a handful of glassblowers in the world who focus solely on figurative sculpture. Sculpting in molten glass is known as the Messello technique, and working this way requires extreme dexterity, speed and precise temperature control. He chooses to sculpt in glass mainly for the material's immediacy and transparency and for the intensity of the sculpting experience.
Pete Jackman, Vestjardavegur, pastel on paper
Peter Hayes, Disc with blue wave
25 April to 13 June 2020
Pete Jackman: Icelandic Horizons with Sculpture by Peter Hayes
The paintings and drawings in the Icelandic Horizons exhibition are interpretations of 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, this informs Pete Jackman's mark making and colour palette.
Pete's recent work is mostly 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 buildings, this distance has the effect of making the impression of the landscape something unapproachable and removed. In contrast, and in a sense of relief, other work is more concerned with the small-scale forms of boulders, pebbles & vegetation.
This work represents Pete's interpretation and reactions 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. As each piece progresses the 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 will be 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 then finished by waxing and polishing.
Sarah Spackman, Little Apple Tree, oil on linen
25 April to 13 June 2020
Sarah Spackman: Specific beauty
Sarah Spackman's work is distinguished by a strength of drawing, together with a delicate and subtle use of colour. Sarah has become particularly well known for her still-life paintings. She works in a quiet considered way applying the principle that good drawing is the basis of good painting. Sarah uses colour to enhance the organisation and definition of observed form. Sarah considers the setting up of a still life a crucial part of the process: focusing on the objects themselves, everyday objects that are often looked at but not seen, how they relate to each other and the space in which they sit. When painting Sarah pursues the development of these relationships through constantly looking, contemplating, redrawing and colour adjusting.
Sarah studied at Byam Shaw School of Art and Camberwell School of Art in 1970s and 80s and is now internationally recognised for her work. She won the Winsor and Newton Young Artists Award at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters exhibition is a member of the the Royal Society of British Artists. She is the winner of the Gordon Hulson Memorial Prize.
Sarah says: I am often inspired by the specific beauty of an organic form be it a nasturtium picked from the allotment or a particularly handsome fig at the market. My way of expressing my response to these objects is through drawing and painting.
Dagmar Korecki, Stack of Rings
25 April to 5 September 2020
Summer Craft Collection: Crafts with the Local Heart
Our specially selected collection of ceramics, jewellery and textiles. All items are beautifully hand-crafted by some of the UK's most talented designer-makers: they are perfect pieces for any home or to give as beautiful gifts if you can bear to part with them!
The collection presents ceramics by: Sarah Grove, Peter Hayes, Katherine Kingdon, Judy McKenzie, Jane Muir, Ingrid Saag, Linda Southwell and Katalin Szallas, Handwoven Rugs by Jacqueline James and Jewellery by EM Jewellery, Dagmar Korecki, Judit Patkos and Kate Wood.
25 April to 13 June 2020
Peter Layton: Maker in Focus
Artist, pioneer, mentor, Peter Layton is one of the founding fathers of British studio glass. He discovered the art from while teaching ceramics in the US in the mid 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.
The London Glassblowing studio has nurtured and produced some of the world's leading glass artists and continues to do so to this day. This is thanks to an open door policy extending to artists, collectors and the curious public who wander into the Bermondsey Street gallery and studio. Here they will find the energetic octogenarian in jeans and trainers bouncing between his family of resident artists, advising, collaborating and teaching, while producing his own unmistakable work.
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 London Glassblowing Workshop in an old towage works on the Thames at Rotherhithe. Here he used to dangle his feet over the flood wall and take inspiration from the flowing river.
Glassblowing was (and increasingly is) an expensive business, new equipment, materials and energy bills required working with other artists. He was joined by Charles Ramsay, drawing in names such as Norman Stuart Clarke and Siddy Langley. This created not just financial returns but a collaborative space for the exchange of ideas, the incubation of artists, and the development of new techniques. This ethos has endured through two relocations along London's Southbank to the workshop's current premises on Bermondsey Street.
Peter has always taken 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.
