#EastbourneALIVE

TOWNER Eastbourne What’s On

Autumn & Winter 2020

Gallery One

Art, Life and Us: Christine Binnie, Jennifer Binnie and

the Towner Collection19 September 2020 to 16 May 2021

Free Admission

Christine Binnie and Jennifer Binnie have a long-standing connection with the Eastbourne area and grew up in Wannock. They spent formative years attending Eastbourne College of Art and Design which firmly established their identities as artists.

They have both developed a strong connection to the rural and downland landscape that has influenced their work in performance art, pottery (Christine) and painting (Jennifer). Along with Wilma Johnson, the sisters are founding members of The Neo Naturists, a performance art collective which evolved in the early 1980s in London.

Art, Life and Us guides the visitor on a journey that reflects on and embraces our place in this changing world, exploring themes of nature, the body and the meaning and cycles of life. Works from Towner’s Collection intertwine with new artworks and interventions by the artists including ceramics and objects arranged to imitate the artists’ personal collections and a moving image installation comprising woodland materials set amongst painted wall murals. Collection artists include Phelan Gibb, Leon Underwood, Paule Vezelay, Joy Griffith, Sir Alfred James Munnings, Harold Mockford, Duncan Grant, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Chris Drury.

Neo Naturist Cabaret Artistes at Rest, 1992 © The Artists, photo: Wilf Rogers

#ArtLifeUs

Christine Binnie and Jennifer Binnie on the South Downs, photo: Rosie Powell

Studio One, Gallery Two & Gallery Three

Towner International6 October 2020 to 10 January 2021

Free Admission

Sherko Abbas, Ayo Akingbade, Jonathan Baldock, Paul Becker, Maeve Brennan, Adam Chodzko, Julia Crabtree and William Evans, Benedict Drew, Rita Evans, Marianne Fahmy, Mu-Tien Tammy Ho,

Ian Land, Alexi Marshall, Stuart Middleton, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Saskia Olde Wolbers, Ryan Orme, Joe Packer, Mohammed Sami, Arpita Shah, Jack Shearing, Omar Vega Macotela, Carla Wright

Towner International is a new biennial exhibition of contemporary art featuring British and International artists. Artists were selected through an open call process by Towner’s Offsite and Exhibitions Curator Noelle Collins along with guest judges Polly Staple (Director of Collection, British Art, Tate) and Turner Prize nominated artist Mike Nelson.

The exhibition is an exploration of how artistic communities are recording and responding to the economic, political, cultural and environmental changes that are unfolding across the world today. These themes are examined through a wide range of media including photography, moving image, sculpture, installation, ceramics, painting and print.

The Brewers Award of £10,000, sponsored by Brewers Decorator Centres, will be awarded to one of the exhibiting artists along with mentoring from the Towner team.

Benedict Drew, still from The Bad Feel Loops, 2019 © The Artist. Courtesy the artist and

Matt’s Gallery, London

Ayo Akingbade, still from Dear Babylon, 2019 © The Artist

#TownerInternational

Online

Film London Jarman Award2020 Touring Programme Thursday 5 November, online from 12.00pm

Free

The Film London Jarman Award celebrates the most exciting artists working in moving image in the UK. This year’s shortlisted artists are Michelle Williams Gamaker, Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings, Jenn Nkiru, Project Art Works, Larissa Sansour, and Andrea Luka Zimmerman.

Art and film lovers can watch full-length works by all shortlisted artists during a special online screening on Thursday 5 November. Towner’s Director Joe Hill will host an online conversation with Project Art Works at 6pm.

Project Art Works will discuss their recent film Illuminating the Wilderness (2019) directed by Kate Adams and Tim Corrigan, and filmed on location with Ben Rivers, Margaret Salmon and neurodiverse artists and makers, families and carers. The film follows the investigation of a remote Scottish glen over several days and reveals the pleasures and challenges of neurodiverse responses to nature and shared experience.

Please register for these events at townereastbourne.org.uk

Project Art Works, Illuminating The Wilderness, Film Still, 2019, © PAW

Gallery Three

Margaret Mellis: Modernist Constructs

23 January to 11 April 2021 Free Admission

In 1939, aware of impending war, the artists Margaret Mellis and her husband Adrian Stokes relocated from London to St Ives in Cornwall. Their move would become a significant catalyst in the formation of The St Ives School, which also included Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham, who had followed them to St Ives. The school is heavily aligned with the story of British Modernism, with many of the artists becoming well-known. Margaret Mellis however remains largely overlooked.

This exhibition draws from Mellis’ extensive repertoire of work, spanning her career and illuminating the breadth of her practice and underlying narratives: it brings together her early experiments in collage under the guidance of Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo in the 1940s, the vibrant abstracts of the 1950s and 1960s (reminiscent to those of her friend and contemporary William Gear) and the contemplative, yet playful driftwood constructions that dominated the final twenty years of her practice.

The strength of Mellis’ work lies in her confident and relentless exploration of colour and form both on canvas and through her re-appropriation of objects. Modernist Constructs introduces and reveals Mellis’ artistic accomplishments, whilst aligning her within the British Modernist movement.

Margaret Mellis, Fisherman, 1990–1991 © The Artist’s Estate, photo: The Redfern Gallery

Gallery Two

Melissa Gordon: Liquid Gestures

30 January to 11 April 2021 Free Admission

Melissa Gordon is an artist, curator and writer, whose practice is concerned with the body, gesture, and painting, viewed through the lens of feminism. Liquid Gestures is a solo exhibition featuring large-scale paintings that further her examination of modern art histories, ideas of authorship, and the appropriation of certain ‘gestures’.

In recent works, a grid, mesh or chain-link fence is the first image silkscreened directly onto the canvas, creating a framework that plays host to an array of intriguing references. Photographs and texts relating to her research are then painted or printed onto the surface, while outlines and silhouettes of painting tools, clothing and domestic objects slip over and under colourful swathes of paint. Traversing between figuration and abstraction, these brushstrokes and pools of colour have been re-painted and reproduced from the incidental mark making on Gordon’s studio wall with an almost forensic examination of gesture.

Gordon invites us to consider the significance and influence of artists such as Janet Sobel in relation to the drip painting and Dada poet Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven in relation to the readymade. Their contributions to art history have been eclipsed in a culture of gender inequality that is noticeably persistent even today.

Melissa Gordon, Female Readymade (Broom, Empty Calendar, Mabel’s painting, Net, Rope,

Chain, Test canvas), 2020, © The Artist

Join In

During this unusual period our Learning Team has been developing new ways to make together with our local and national audiences.

We’re working with artists to design packs of art materials and activity sheets, which are delivered through our community partners to households in Eastbourne and East Sussex. Additionally, our Instagram Live Making Workshops series is available to view on our website.

The Arts In Mind group with artist Mandy Wax continues to meet online and we are looking forward to welcoming back participants to our Open Ended sessions when it is safe to do so.

In October we have two special weeks of free live activities in the building.

Christine Binnie and Jennifer Binnie

13 to 18 October, 12 to 4pm Studio Two

The sisters will use the space to share their daily routines and practices: to make work, plan projects, practice music and perform yoga as if it were their regular artist studio. Each day the space will be open for the public to see and talk to the artists.

Rita Evans

27, 29 and 31 October Studio Two

We will be hosting Towner International artist Rita Evans to share activities with families.

For more information visit townereastbourne.org.uk/learning

Dates Extended

Lothar Götz: Dance Diagonal

Now extended until May 2021, don’t miss Dance Diagonal, Lothar Götz’s large-scale, geometric artwork which has transformed the gallery exterior. Götz, a German artist based in the UK, was chosen from over 60 artists through an open call for the Brewers Towner Commission, a painting commission to mark Towner’s 10th Anniversary in the current building. This is the first time an artist has been commissioned to create an artwork at scale for Towner’s exterior.

Save the Date

John Nash: The Landscape of Love and Solace

1 May to 26 September 2021 Tickets on sale now

Towner Eastbourne and Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park are pleased to present the most comprehensive major exhibition of work in over 50 years by John Nash, one of the most versatile and prolific artists of the 20th century.

The Landscape of Love and Solace has been co-curated by Andy Friend, independent curator (Ravilious & Co, 2018) and Sara Cooper, Head of Collections and Exhibitions, Towner Eastbourne.

Lothar Götz, Dance Diagonal, 2019, photo: Eva Eastman

Ravilious Gallery

Towner has one of the largest public collections of work by Eric Ravilious (1903–1942) as well as extensive archive materials. The Ravilious Gallery is a dedicated space presenting changing exhibitions and offering new perspectives on the works of the artist.

The current hang includes many of Ravilious’ Sussex paintings and examples of his ceramic work made for Wedgwood. Supported by Eastbourne Arts Circle.

Please note that the Collection Library is currently closed to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Please check our website and social media for updates.

Towner Cinema

We’re delighted to announce that Towner Cinema will be reopening on 17 October, with reduced capacity and Covid-safe precautions in place. After a long hiatus, and with film release dates still uncertain, we’re looking forward to being creative with our programming and showing a curated selection of new and recent films, alongside some classic cinema. For up to date information, visit our website and sign up for our cinema newsletter.

Visitor Information

• If you or a member of your household has symptoms of Covid-19, please do not visit the gallery.

• To allow social distancing we will be limiting the number of visitors allowed into each exhibition space and also into the building itself. You may be asked to wait for short periods during busy times.

• On entry, all visitors will be asked to sanitise hands and we will also be taking contact details to support NHS Test & Trace.

• Visitors are required by government guidelines to wear face coverings to enter the gallery.

• Cashless payments only please.

• Our cloakroom, sensory space and library remain closed for the time being, but please check our website for updates.

Ravilious Gallery, photo: Rob Harris

Towner Cinema, photo: Rob Harris

Your Visit Join our ConversationVisit our website to join our mailing list or contact us at towner@townereastbourne.org.uk @TownerGallery @hello_towner

Our revised opening hours for September are Wednesday to Sunday 10.00am to 5.00pm

From 6 October our opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday 10.00am to 5.00pm

Towner will be closed on 24, 25 and 26 December and 1 January.

Free Admission

+44 (0) 1323 434 670 townereastbourne.org.uk

Getting Here Towner Eastbourne, Devonshire Quarter, College Road, Eastbourne BN21 4JJ

We encourage environmentally friendly transport options. Secure bike racks are available and we are 10 minutes walk from Eastbourne train station. Visit towner.gallery/carfree or contact us for more information.

Direct trains to Eastbourne from London (1 hr 25 mins), Brighton (35 mins) and from across the South East. The 3 (local service) and 12A (Brighton) buses stop near the Winter Garden Theatre on Carlisle Road.

Pay and Display parking is available at College Road Car Park. Both Pay and display and free on-street parking is also available close to the gallery. There is a drop off area (15 mins) and on street parking bays for blue badge holders to the front of the building.

Towner café Our spacious top floor café is open, serving delicious snacks and light lunches, with reduced capacity and table service to allow for social distancing. Cashless payments only.

ShopOur ground floor shop is open. Cashless payments only please. You can also enjoy our online shop at townereastbourne.org.uk/shop Free postage for purchases over £25

Venue Hire Our spaces, including the cinema, are available to hire for daytime and evening events. To find out more, call +44 (0)1323 434679 or email venuehire@townereastbourne.org.uk Membership Support our work and enjoy invitations to private views, free entry to ticketed exhibitions, and discounts for talks and special events as well as in our café and shop. Join now for as little as £35 per year at towner.gallery/members Booking We recommend booking tickets in advance at townereastbourne.org.uk, by calling +44 (0) 1323 434 670 or at the Welcome Desk, unless otherwise stated.

Accessibility We have a lift to each floor and a wheelchair can be provided. See our website or contact us to discuss specific needs. Towner supports the I-GO Access All Areas scheme.

Front cover artwork: Jonathan Baldock, Maske XLI, 2019 © The Artist. Courtesy the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

Thanks to Devonshire Park Hotel for their ongoing support.