Local Artists Selected for National Touring Exhibition
Two artists from Hastings and St Leonards-On-Sea have had artwork selected for a high profile, upcoming national touring exhibition organised by award-winning arts charity, Outside In. They will have their work shown at Christie’s in London and The New Art Gallery Walsall in the West Midlands.
Christopher Hoggins,: My Ideal (alone) Home
Christopher Hoggins and Andrew Harston both submitted work for Outside In’s National Open Exhibition following an open call last year. The charity provides a platform for artists who face significant barriers to the art world due to health, disability, social circumstance and isolation. Its 7th National Open Exhibition has the theme of ‘Shelter’. Eighty works were selected by a panel from over 600 submissions, and Christopher’s and Andrew’s work has now been selected for the exhibition tour.
Both artists have lived experience of homelessness and housing problems. Andrew Harston found himself jobless, out of cash and broken down in his “rather poorly campervan” last year. “The council then wanted to move me on… the van was fine where it stood as long as I wasn’t inside!” he recounts. These combined experiences led Andrew to turn to portraiture within the local community as a source of income.
Inside Out, the work Andrew submitted for this exhibition, groups together some of the portraits he has made during this time. “The plan was that each portrait I would do would be a part of a bigger piece, forming a sort of self-portrait reflecting on the need for community, my own place within it, and how we are all a part of each other’s lives,” he comments.
“The piece was originally intended to be made up of 1,000 individual portraits but, on reflection… it seemed more important to let things breathe! Though I’m still finding my way, portraiture allowed me to keep my home on the road, connect more deeply with so many more people and find some form of meaning and direction in life.”
Christopher Hoggins submitted a work entitled My Ideal (alone) Home featuring his fantasy home – a lighthouse. “At the time I painted this I was being thrown out of my home of 13 years and had just discovered that I was autistic,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to live somewhere isolated, and a lighthouse fits the bill perfectly!”
Chris has a distinctive style, and his cute, cartoonish Dweebling characters offer a catalyst for him to explore darker subjects: mental health, homelessness, poverty and autism. He has recently published two books, The Illustrated Autist, which concerns his own diagnosis of autism at age 50, and I Dunno About Art (but I know what I like), an illustrated, tongue-in-cheek exploration of the history of art, made from his own unique perspective, including humorous reinterpretations of classics by Da Vinci, Hogarth, Monet, Hockney and Warhol.
Both artists stand a chance to win the exhibition’s potentially life-changing first prize of a solo show. Outside In’s last national open, Humanity, was won by another local artist, Michelle Roberts. The solo exhibition she won as a result is currently showing at the De La Warr Pavilion until 1 June.
Exhibition organisers: outsidein.org.uk Shelter will open at The New Art Gallery Walsall in the West Midlands from 27 June–19 October, then show at Christie’s London from 12-22 January 2026. Andrew Harston can be contacted for private portrait commissions via his Instagram account @andrewharstonart. Christopher Hoggins’ publications are available from his Etsy site Dweeblings–Etsy UK, and more details of his art are at: instagram.com/chris_hoggins
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