Opening up

Hi, sadly it is almost the end of summer. "What summer?" I hear you cry. So, as we creep towards September it means arts festival time and locally it's Coastal Currents, the 1066 Sussex Arts Festival. 

 Coastal Currents will start at the end of August and run throughout September. The Open Studios is on for two weekends, 31 August and 1, 7 & 8 September. As I said in my previous newsletter, I am opening up my flat/studio to exhibit new and old work that has not seen the light of day for some while. Jo Buse will be exhibiting her fabulous jewellery, (see images below) along with her Kimonos and vintage lampshades. Jeff, my cat, will undoubtedly oversee the whole extravaganza from the mantelpiece! If you don't know Coastal Currents it is an annual celebration of arts and culture across the 1066 Sussex region. Visit my Events page for more details. 

I am keeping this newsletter fairly short because of time. Still, I just wanted to say that I am involved in a big group show coming up in November at my favourite gallery Electro Studios and for the first time, we have the downstairs and upstairs galleries. The downstairs will be part two of In Harms Way from last September with my good friends Wolfgang Dubieniec and Oli Spleen, and upstairs will be invited friends, yet to be finalised. I am very excited about the show and I will give you much more detail in the next newsletter. 

Hope to see you at Coastal Currents over the next two weekends and just to let you know it will not be like a normal exhibition as there might be changes over the two weekends. 

Now that you're here

We are already well into the summer if you can call it summer! it's a busy time with two exhibitions coming up in the next couple of months and one currently going on.
The current exhibition I am involved in started on June 14th at the Cake Room, Hastings.  14 artists swapped artwork and took inspiration from the swap It's on until Sunday 14 th July. My next group show is at Electro Landing Gallery, Electro Studios, St Leonards from the 12 - 14th of July  Private View Friday 12th July 6 - 9 pm and then from 12 - 6 pm 13th - 14th July. Then from the end of August to early September I am opening my studio as part of Coastal Currents. I will show new and old works along with Jo Buse who will be exhibiting her jewellery, kimonos and lampshades. Please have a look at my Events Page for more details. 

New works for sale 1. The grand gift of silence. Acrylic on canvas 460 x 560 x 20 mm £295 2. Love like bitter almond. acrylic ink on card 420 x 594 mm £175 3. A small sample of the possible. Acrylic paint on canvas 300 x 300 x 30 mm £225.

The most recent exhibition I saw in St Leonards was at the Electro studios involving Turps Banana a painter-led art school. It is an online mentoring programme delivered by an individual mentor. The course is aimed at painters who want to develop or reinvigorate their work, whether recently graduated from art school, mid-career or those without any formal art education. I was impressed with this exhibition. I knew about Turps Banana from when I lived in London they had studios above me when I had a studio in Elephant and Castle. There were twenty-five artists involved in the exhibition and there were some impressive works. I was particularly impressed with the work of Shona Mcgovern, Sharon Mcphee and Jo Mason see their websites for more details. 

 So, that is it for now, It's a bit short this time but will have a more detailed letter next time. I hope to see you at one of my upcoming exhibitions.

Mark Walter and Spring

The dust has settled since my last show in March and now I'm looking towards the summer and my next exhibitions. 

I'm continuing my run of group shows with a show at the Cake Room, Hastings in June. The Private view will be on Friday 14th June  6-8 PM.

14 artists and the show is titled Swap Shop, we have been paired with another artist and we have to take inspiration from their work for a piece of our work. I will have more information in my next newsletter. 

My next show after that is in July at Electro Landing Gallery, Seaside Rd, St Leonards on the 12th,13th and 14th. The group exhibition is titled; 'Now that you're here'. The Private View will be on the 12th from 6 -9 pm. I'm looking forward to showing for the 2nd time with Wolfgang Dubieniec and three other friends, Flora Storm,  Joe Murphy and Jude Montague. More details will follow in the next newsletter and there are more details on my  Events page.

I have another two group shows later in the year on the weekend of November 15th-17th. The Private view will be on Friday 15th of November from 6-9 pm both at the Electro where we have both galleries. December will be part two of all of the fair of the unfair, the weekend of 6th-8th. The Private view is on Friday 6th of December 6-9 pm, more details to follow in the coming months.

Recently I went to the Frank Auerbach exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London and was completely blown away. The exhibition is made up of his charcoal drawings made in the 1950s and 60's and it's the first time they have all been shown together. What I particularly love about the charcoal drawings are the depth and layering of the charcoal. Also, I hadn't realised that he cut up his drawings so much and put pieces from other pieces of his drawings onto different drawings that give them so much depth. They are also shown with some of his paintings again of his sitters. The exhibition is on until the end of May, I recommend a visit and the Coultauld is a great gallery space set in the grounds of Somerset House.

Finally, a mention to Jude Montague and her upcoming project spirit of Invention Festival to celebrate the inventor John Logie Baird who at one point Lived and worked in Hastings and came up with the idea for the television walking on the cliffs looking over Hastings. The exhibition is at Electro Studios Project Space, St Leonards from 7-13 May. Artists will contribute their visualised ideas which will include sculpture and painting alongside more unconventional gallery pieces, I hope to take part in the exhibition and hopefully see you there. 

Mark Walter and None of the Above

This is a shortened version of my news letter a more detailed version will follow next time.

My latest exhibition is almost upon us a group show with my old MA group and we now meet regularly for crits. We never had a show at the end of our MA as we were in the middle of COVID-19. So this is a good chance for us to show together and exhibit work we have been working on since then. The five other artists are Seiko Harima, Josie Taylor, Judy Hirshorn, Jane Andrews, and Lee Rousell, It all takes place at one of my favourite St Leonards venues Electro Studios, Seaside Road. The date and times are 1st March 6 pm --9 pm 2nd & 3rd March 12 - 5 pm and I am delighted that my good friends Rob and Andy also known as the Barbarian Horde will be playing at the PV on Friday evening.  

Looking forward to seeing you on Friday at the private view, or over the weekend at the exhibition. If you can't make it there will be lots of photos on social media.

Mark Walter Art for 2024

Hello. A  very belated Happy New Year. Lots going on for the New Year art-wise after a successful 2023, and thank you again to everyone who supported me.
My last exhibition, at Priory Meadow, was a success. Thank you to those who attended, particularly at the private view which was a horrible wet day. An interesting place for a pop-up gallery in a shopping centre, particularly at Christmas! A big thank you to Julia Kotziamani from Hastings Art School  Thank you for the great feedback, particularly about how I curated the show. Finally, Jude Montague interviewed me for the Hastings Online Times in December about the exhibition thank you, Jude. 

Still in the planning stage, but excited about my first group exhibition of the year in early March at the Electro Studios, Saint Leonards on Sea. As you might know,  this is one of my favourite gallery spaces. It's been a long time coming but finally exhibiting with my MA group from Brighton. We had the nightmare of finishing our MA in lockdown and then never had a proper final show, only an online show which wasn't the same.
So this is our first show together since. The exhibition, as I said, is still in the planning stage. The date for the exhibition is the first weekend in March with the PV being on the Friday evening of the 1st of March and the exhibition running over the 2nd and 3rd of that weekend. Check my events page for updates and there will be more details in my next newsletter.

It is early in the year and as I write this we are in a very cold snap so a good time to see an exhibition. I braved the conditions to go up to London and see Women in Revolt! - Women in Activism 1970-1990 I have to say what a fabulous show and way overdue! Spread over a large area of Tate Britain it details the feminist movement from the 1970s through the 1980s until the 1990s. In those twenty years, feminism exploded and women used their life experiences to make art. The exhibition covers many art forms, painting, photography, film and performance art. 
I was shocked but not surprised that many of these artists, although having long careers, were forgotten at the time and, for many, this is the first time for their artwork to be displayed since the 1970s. I loved this exhibition for the way it portrayed the artists and the amazing diversity of the work. If you haven't already seen it I thoroughly recommend you do. 

I am currently working on a very large biro drawing you will see in my latest social media post with Jeff the cat adding his usual helpful paw marks to my work! I plan to show this and other biro drawings in a show later in the year so watch this space for further updates. 

Mark Walter Solo in the Shopping Centre

There has been a lot happening this year and it carries on with my involvement in three exhibitions in December see below for more details.  

The last few weeks have been very busy on what has been a busy and successful year and thank you to everyone who helped me along the way. I have a solo show Titled: More Mono Than Chrome at the Hastings Art School space at the Priory Meadow Shopping Centre from 6-10 December. The opening hours are 12-4 pm from 6 -9 December, and I my private view is on the last day Sunday 10th December from 1-5 pm Please Pop in for a drink and look at my latest work. 

Christmas is rapidly approaching,  it's been a busy time for all and if you need a Christmas idea  I have a couple of pieces in the Affordable Art Winter Exhibition at the Rogue Gallery that runs through December until the 23rd. I also have two works in a show organised by The Hastings Art School at Electro Studios in early December, Titled: The Old is Dying. The Private View is on December 1st from  6 -9 pm and it continues on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd from 10 -5 pm. Check my Events page for more details.

View fullsize

View fullsize

Left: "The board is not the game", ink on paper

Right: "Some strung together, some not", acrylic on paper

I managed to get up to London recently to Gallery 475, which happens to be opposite Chelsea Football Ground on Fulham Road to see Giselle Jones who was part of a group show titled, Untold. It was great to see Giselle and her new work, Giselle and I completed the MA fine Art course at Brighton University. Her new work looked stunning and had an amazing depth. I also loved the video work by Tomasz Matuszak 

Mark Walter and More Monochrome

Since my last newsletter, the last exhibition, In Harm's Way was a great success in visitor numbers and sales.  Thanks again to Oli Spleen and Wolfgang Dubieniec for making it a great event, and thanks to everyone who came, it was lovely to see so many friends and also new faces. 

I have a lot coming up including a group show, Do You See What I Sea, which had its private view on Friday 20 October. There are nine artists and it's at the Cake Room and the exhibition runs until 12 November.

In December I have a solo exhibition at the pop-up gallery in Priory Meadow in early December.  More details will be forthcoming in my next newsletter, Please view my Events page for details.

Above are a couple of pictures from the private view of In Harm's Way.

Above are the three works that I am showing at the Cake Room. They are 'When The Fisherman Comes', 'Undermine me like a Dorset Cliff', and 'You cast me away like a piece of Driftwood'.

I recently visited a gallery in South London that I hadn't been to before, playfully named The Sunday Painter. I really love the space, laid out on two floors and maybe a location you would not expect to see a modern contemporary gallery situated on South Lambeth Road. The latest exhibition titled 'When a Bird Lands on the Ground it invariably stops singing' by Ernesto Burgos a Chilean-American born in Santa Clare, California in 1979. I really loved his playful abstract works made from fibreglass, cardboard, resin, and wood and topped with oil paint, polyurethane wood stain, topped with different brush strokes as well as a spray bottle. Burgos is primarily a sculptor but these works that hang on the wall rather than his usual floor-based work have embraced a more painterly expression. I recommend a trip to this Portuguese-laden part of south London to see this stunning and exciting exhibition but be quick as the show closes on the 28th of October. 

As we move into the autumnal part of the year, one of my favourites and obviously not mentioning Christmas! I look forward to sharing more details of my latest works and up-and-coming exhibitions in my next newsletter. 

Mark Walter In Harms Way

I hope you are enjoying the late summer sunshine. St. Leonards is a great place to live particularly when the sun is out! 

In my last newsletter, there were a couple of spelling errors, My apologies to Tessa and Markus Thonett which I now hope are correct.

I spoke in my last newsletter about exhibitions I have coming up, well my latest one is less than two weeks away! A  group show with my good friends Oli Spleen and Wolfgang Dubieniec at the Electro Studios Landing Gallery in St Leonards.

Some of you know Oli and Wolfgang. To give you a bit more detail about their work Oli Spleen started as a visual artist in the 1990s with paintings and later with sculpture and film. Having to leave the University of East London after the second year of his BA due to AIDS-related complications, he started to approach writing as an art form, later branching out to music, performance and songwriting. His work continues to draw on all these elements. Wolfgang Dubieniec is a filmmaker, musician & visual artist with a broad body of work in photography, music videos, sound design, songwriting and installation. With a first-class BA Honours in digital music and sound arts, his work strongly focuses on creating experiences of emotion, nostalgia and memory through various mediums.
Please view my Events page for details, times, locations etc 

In my studio preparing canvases for new work for the In Harms Way exhibition in September. 

My assistant Jeff the cat doing his best to help me out but mainly sleeping!

Contagion is one of my older pieces and is currently in an exhibition at The Hasting Art Forum Gallery in St Leonards, which runs until 17th September.

I like to feature other artists, Two artists whom I have recently interviewed Anne Lydiat and Alison Claire France are artists who both have a really interesting way of mark-making and both use drawing as the main medium in their practice, something that I also do but that doesn't always feature in the finished piece. 

Looking forward to hopefully seeing you at In Harms Way or an exhibition soon. Please contact me if you would like to arrange a studio visit in person or an online tour.

Mark Walter and the Unfair

Hello. Welcome to my latest newsletter, It's been a busy time. 

The group show I was involved in at the start of the month, All the Fair of the Unfair, was a great success. We had a busy Private view and Exhibition and plenty of our works were sold. I have added a few pictures from the private view below. The paintings in the background of these pictures are top to bottom on mobile, or clockwise from top left on a big screen. A Mood Painting is not to be seen but to be felt, then there are two pictures of the triptych, Torment and the pain leaked through and the last picture is Banal Expectations 

My next show will be at the Backlit Gallery in Nottingham at the end of May. I will have more information about this exhibition in my next newsletter, please view my Events page for times and dates.

I recently wrote a piece about my friend and fellow artist Victoria Kiff for the Hastings Independent. Victoria is showing at the Rogue Gallery,  I really love Victoria's work, it is of a figurative bent and has a  classical yet modern quality and fantastic movement. The exhibition is on until May 7th and is a must-see. 
 

 There are some great exhibitions at the moment at the Hastings Comptempory, including Kosoff and Soutain  There are around 40 works from the two artists. The discovery of Soutine’s paintings in the early 1950s was apparently a significant moment for Kossoff, who was already finding his way towards the kind of direct and expressive use of paint he saw in his predecessor’s work. I plan to review this show in the coming months. Also at the contemporary is We Out Here  The exhibition represents six Black Artists of Caribbean heritage living in Hastings. The artists worked in different mediums, exploring different themes including migration, Black lives in coastal towns, relationships with the sea, climate justice and racial injustice, fast fashion and the Black presence in crafts. Another excellent show so a great reason to have a day by the sea. 

Hopefully, see you at my next exhibition at the end of May. 

Mark

Mark Walter and St Leonards

I have left Brighton and moved along the coast to St Leonards. It has been an unsettled three months but I hope to be moving into my own place soon. It is exciting as St Leonards and Hastings have so much to offer. The Hastings Contemporary has developed a genuine local flavour and are supporting local artists. I plan to join the Hastings Arts Forum too

 This is called "That which remains the same rises from the dark" and is 80 x 60 and digital media.

I have recently met Helen Murphy and Nick Pelling, keen participants in the Hastings art scene and great writers, they are writing a piece about me that should be published soon. I'm looking forward to getting settled and seeing more local shows.

I went to see Thunderbolt Disco, the show by Robert Nava, at the Pace Gallery. His paintings are large and very vibrant and he uses various media and the textures are rough and thick. He depicts everyday life including pictures of fish and cats. His work is selling for lots of money, so I'm off to paint a six-foot picture of my cat Jeff.

Looking forward to seeing you at an exhibition soon.

Mark Walter and the studio move

First my apologies for the delay in posting, a lot has happened since the end of Artists Open Houses in June.

I am really excited to have taken over the former studio of the wonderful Jane Andrews in Portslade. The new studio gives me much more space to work and I'll be able to produce larger work again with ease. If you would like to visit please call me to arrange a time. The closest station is Portslade and there are lots of buses that go along Kingsway, the studio is just a couple of stops away from Hove Lagoon.

I recently visited Chrissy McLaughlan in Coventry and she has been producing some amazing work over the summer, check out her Instagram to see some.

I was in Hastings on 17 October to see the Barbarian Horde play at the Jenny Lind.
While there I went to the Hastings Contemporary, They currently have two shows and the first is Project Art Works: Ignition-The Exhibition. Ignition began as a residency and is now being exhibited in the main gallery space. During the last national lockdown, artists worked in the temporary studio while the building was closed to the public.

The second show is called Seaside Modern: Art and life on the beach. This exhibition ends 31 October. Curator James Russell takes a fresh look at the popularity of the British seaside in the first half of the 20th century. The exhibition includes work by Paul Nash, LS Lowry, Eileen Agar and Laura Knight. 

Things are slow for me at the moment as I have broken my right arm. I'm still in the studio working though if you would like to arrange a studio visit in person, or an online tour.