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.
Danniella Wilde, Anemones
18 January to 5 September 2020
Craft Collection: Crafts with the Local Heart (extended)
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, Katherine Kingdom, Bérangère Noyau, Sarah Packington, Alison Proctor, Miranda Peckitt, Jacqui Ramrayka, Tamar Rose, Tiffany Scull, Carolyn Tripp, Clare Underwood, Vezzini & Chen and Danniella Wilde.
Mitch Pilkington, Two Pink Point Sculptural Vessels
7 March to 4 July 2020
One Year On: Mitch Pilkington: Winner of Rising Stars 2019 (extended)
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 4 July 2020
Rising Stars 2020 (extended)
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 4 July 2020
The Pastel Society (extended)
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 and Jill Jeffrey.
Amanda Hoskins, Walking the Coast Path from Lamorna Cove, Cornwall, oil on paper
11 July to 5 September 2020
Amanda Hoskins: Expressions of Cornwall
Living and painting in Cornwall makes a journey to the artist's studio an inspiration or a 10 mile hike along the coastal path a source of endless ideas.
Amanda Hoskins portrays some of her favourite places in Cornwall, presenting eclectic paintings of beaches, clifftops, flowers, moorlands and woodlands. Using sketches created in situ Amanda returns to her studio where she works on larger oil paintings. She retains her emotional connection with the landscape while experimenting in the sketchbooks. For Amanda, there is a richness in the English landscape that has always inspired, artists, writers, poets and film makers - long may this continue.
Vicky Oldfield, Spotty Lashes 2
11 July to 5 September 2020
Vicky Oldfield: Flowers: the eccentric and ordinary
Vicky is an artist and printmaker who likes to find beauty in the everyday - some weeds on a road side, or a cluttered windowsill can set off a new collection. She treasures both the eccentric and the ordinary, inspired by collections of found objects and natural forms; she is fascinated with the structure and design found in flowers and plants, often redrawing the same plant many times over to explore the subtle variations in its form.
Vicky's still lives often incorporate seedpods, grasses, bottles and bowls collected on walking and sketching trips. Each piece tells a story using collage and drawing, referencing a memory, time or place.
She starts with drawing often directly on to the plate which is then drawn into and collaged with a variety of materials, card, fabric, paper, string, sand and anything else that may come to hand; it's recycling at its most creative! The plates are then sealed, inked up and printed in intaglio or relief on damp paper using an etching press. The embossed textural quality of the print is unique to this method. They are often printed in one colour and then hand painted.
Thanks to the process itself, Vicky is able to make small editions of the image; each edition will vary within its run due to the process itself and her desire to experiment. Each print produced is then unique.
After leaving school, Vicky attended Art College and then worked as a commercial designer in wallpaper and textiles in both London and Paris before becoming a full time artist in 2008. Her work has been exhibited in many major shows including the Royal Academy Summer exhibition and The Royal Society of British Artists, she has also exhibited in America and Japan.
John Bryce, Old Borelli's Yard
12 September to 7 November 2020
Painting Farnham
Known for its Georgian streets, historic buildings and craft heritage, with easy access to the rural North Downs Way, Farnham is a historic market town nestled in the rolling Surrey Hills; offering visitors a chance to enjoy quintessential England, just an hour from the capital. Whatever you are looking for, beautiful green countryside, fascinating heritage to discover, a wealth of independent and quirky shops and creative organisations, Farnham is the perfect place to paint.
The exhibition presents paintings and printwork by artists John Bryce, Jan Gaska, Susie Lidstone, Catherine Warren and Suzanne Winn.
The Foyer Gallery features solo work by Fiona Pearce, much loved for her Farnham landscapes, often depicting a unique but recognisable view of the Bourne Woods.
Shelby Fitzpatrick, 3-strand Perspex hexagon necklace blue violet azure
26 September to 7 November 2020
Celebrating 45 years of the Designer Jewellers' Group (rescheduled dates)
Traditional craftsmanship and cutting edge design at its best, the Designer Jewellers' Group will be celebrating their 45th anniversary at the New Ashgate Gallery in September.
Featuring new collections from the fourteen members, various influences are apparent in the diverse and exciting jewellery on show. From the Bauhaus inspired designs of An Alleweireldt, Petra Bishai, and Emma Farquharson to the naturalistic influences apparent in the work of Annie Ruthven-Taggart and Christina Hirst. Etching and paper pressing feature in the patterned surfaces of Jill Newbrook and Georgina Taylor and vibrant colour from Ute Sanne and Harriet St Leger using rich gold, stones and enamel. Plastic as a precious material inspires Shelby Fitzpatrick and Sarah Macrae with Ulli Kaiser, Bettina Starke and Li-Chu Wu incorporating unusual materials such as antique beads, fur and paper.
History of the Designer Jewellers' Group
The Designer Jewellers' Group started in 1976 between a small group of jewellers eager to showcase and market original work and to promote the best of studio jewellery to the public. Back then there were few outlets for contemporary jewellery and the group were the first group to show at the Goldsmiths Fair in 1977. All members of the Group work for the mutual benefit of the whole, as well as each member having an individual approach to design and their own original creative 'voice'.
Since the creation of the group exhibitions have taken place worldwide, including at the Goldsmiths' Centre, Liberty's, Harvey Nichols, the Cecilia Colman gallery and internationally in Japan, Dubai and the USA. Starting in 1984, a collaboration between the DJG and the Barbican Arts Centre developed into a regular and very popular bi-annual event, continuing for 32 years until 2016. Recently the group can be found at Christmas at the home of the London Livery Company, The Worshipful Company of Salters in London.
Sarah Spackman, Little Apple Tree, oil on linen
Elliot Walker, Still Life
14 November 2020 to 9 January 2021
Sarah Spackman: Specific beauty (rescheduled dates)
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.
Sarah's work will be shown with still live glass maestro Elliot Walker, associated with the London Glassblowing Studios.
Elliot 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.
Paula Reason, machine embroidery on quilted silk background
16 January to 6 March 2021
Paula Reason: A Love Letter to My Father (rescheduled dates)
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.
Pete Jackman, Vestjardavegur, pastel on paper
Peter Hayes, Disc with blue wave
16 January to 6 March 2021
Pete Jackman: Icelandic Horizons with Sculpture by Peter Hayes (rescheduled dates)
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 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.
Laura McKinley, Imagine V, photo A. Cotterill
Bruce Marks, Yellow Grey Birds, photo: A. Cotterill
24 April to 5 June 2021
Exceptional talent from the London Glassblowing Studios (rescheduled dates)
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.
24 April to 5 June 2021
Peter Layton: Maker in Focus (rescheduled dates)
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.
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 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 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.
