The Wealden Consort choral singers are preparing for an ‘uplifting’ choral and classical music concert in Christ Church, Silchester Road, St Leonards on Saturday 30th October. The concert, From Darkness into Light, celebrates of the easing of Covid restrictions with wellknown pieces from composers including Rutter, Chilcott, Faure, Lauridsen, Grieg, Rachmaninov and Schubert. 

Wealden Consort will be joined by the strings attached quartet. Their versatile repertoire combines jazz, tango and classical music with works from composers including Piazzolla and Sorensen. 

• Tickets  £10 are available from The Bookkeeper, Kings Road, St Leonards or on the door.

Stuck on Glue

‘New’ artist Shane O’Leary who represents as Using Glue – “partly because I use a lot of glue in my mixed media work, but mainly because I embrace the old punk, diy ethic of Sniffin’ Glue” has a debut show at Twelve Hundred Postcards (80 Queens Road, Hastings) from 29th October to 12th November. 

Shane says he’s delighted to have had positive feedback from Peter Quinnell “local artist and gent”, and Jack Rutberg, who’s invited him to send some work for assessment.

The show will feature a mixture of decorative abstracts and a selection of collages. Fifty percent of sales will be donated to the Green Party.

Sticky Clay

Kim Kish announces that the St Leonards Ceramics Studio is a creative community hub for all levels of experience within “a friendly and well-equipped environment”. Based in the historic Marina colonnade on the seafront of St Leonards-on-Sea, she says it hosts the largest facilities dedicated to wheel throwing in the local area. Hand building, glazing, and decorating techniques are taught, and students are offered the opportunity to explore all forms of working with clay. 

• Contact: info@stleonardsceramics.co.uk

Pale Walker

Beyond the Pale, a touring exhibition coming to St Leonards, builds a body of work questioning the notion of nationhood and landscape in the 21st century. It is inspired by the artist, Zoe Childerley, walking the length
of the Anglo-Scottish border alone. This covers a region with the most national parks, darkest skies and least population in the country, but also includes the military installations of the West Coast, upland hill farming of the Cheviots and the largest human-made forest in the UK.

• Solaris Print, 76 Norman Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, until Saturday 27th November.

Abandoned and adrift

A new play from award winning writer John Knowles, The Mary Celeste & the Beast of the Bowery, is coming to the Stables Theatre in November via London’s West End (well, the Drayton Arms, Kensington, anyway). Intriguing pre-publicity says it’s about “a priest, a cabin boy and a woman in chains, abandoned and adrift on the vast Adriatic, confined and forced to confront the past and one another”. 

• The Stables Theatre, Hastings 16th, 17th November stablestheatre.co.uk/mary-celeste-and-beast-of-the-bowery

Danny Pockets’ work is an aggregation of forms and ideas that transcends the material from which it is constructed. Employing a variety of media from paint on canvas, recycled materials, acrylics, and chinagraph through to sound and light, Pockets’ art emerged from his highly developed studio practice.

In 1995, responding to a perceptible change in the urban landscape around him, Danny began ‘Congregation’, a series of paintings of shopfronts, abandoned amusement arcades, fairground rides and chip shops. Emerging from this series are the ‘Houses of the Holy’ paintings: music venues, dancehalls and clubs. These are Pockets’ best known works, his tribute to the cathedrals of our rock ’n’ roll heritage that have dramatically helped to shape the modern world; the rapidly disappearing, iconic landmarks at the heart of our culture and the places of magic and legend.

• Private View Saturday 7th September, 6pm to 8pm. Exhibition Open Tuesday to Friday, 1pm to 6pm, and Saturday, 10am to 6pm.

• Solaris Print, 76 Norman Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, TN38 0EJ. Exhibition runs until Saturday 5th October. For more info go to solarisprint.co.uk

Artist and fine art printer Alexandra Drawbridge has been operating Solaris Print from a shop on Norman Road since last August, and her accompanying exhibition space has brought the town some real gems from some of our finest artists. As Solaris Print is fast becoming a hub for a thriving artistic community, HIP talks to Drawbridge about the journey so far and the exciting times ahead for the area.

“I had been running the business out of my living room in Bexhill before moving it here” she tells
me “with that set up it was quite difficult to grow.” We are in the office at the back of her
shop, looking out onto the sea over roof tops on a sunny afternoon. “I had a big opening in August, with an exhibition of my existing clients’ work – it was great, people were spilling
out onto the street.”

Drawbridge has been living and working as an artist in the area for fifteen years. Her practice as a digital artist began at art school and so the printing of artwork has always been an area of
keen interest to her. “For me it’s not just a matter of understanding the technical side. I understand the aesthetic side too and when I work with my clients it’s all about them and what they want. The best part of the work for me is when people are delighted with the finished print.” Being embedded in the artistic community here has also been key to getting her business off the ground. “Being part of a close network of artists has been fantastic for business – so much of what I’ve done here has come from meeting people, going to previews, talking to people, and doing shows together.”

Her clients include many international established artists. “So much of what’s worked here has been down to chance – things tend to go well, there are so many experienced artists and curators in the area.”  She continues, ‘for example, the last show here featured video artist Toby Tatum, we presented stills from his highly layered and textured work. On his way in to hang the exhibition, Toby bumped into curator  David Rhodes, who then spent a few hours helping to hang the show”

“Something really interesting is happening here,” she says, “I’m aware that my peers are doing really exciting things. I think people will look back on this time here and recognise it as an incredible place and time.”

The next exhibition will show the work of another celebrated artist, Mario Rossi. It’s a Front will present a new series of prints developed from watercolours. The series depicts shop fronts, restaurants and cafes from all over the world, all of which have been named after film titles.  A play on the watercolour travel sketch – the traditional approach the privileged classes took to recording their travels in the 18th and 19th centuries – the images shown here were all painted remotely, working from photographs taken from social media streams. “All our exhibitions have prints at their core but can include other kinds of work as well,” she tells me. “Mario will be building a whole canopy installation along one of the walls. I can’t wait to see it.”

• It’s a Front, Mario Rossi opens at Solaris Print, Norman Road on 28 April

• For more information see www.solarisprint.co.uk

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