Art & Exhibitions

Exeter Contemporary Open is an annual exhibition, selected from hundreds of entries, submitted by artists from across the UK. It forms a major highlight of the South West’s cultural calendar and a vital springboard for the careers of emerging contemporary artists. This year’s shortlist showcases the work of fifteen contemporary visual artists who work across painting, sculpture, photography and video.

Alluvial Matters is an artistic-research project and series of performance rituals which respond to histories of tin mining on Dartmoor. The installation in Gallery333 includes an assemblage of tin sculptures formed during our performance rituals and links to accompanying sound pieces.

A solo exhibition of textile sculptures, collage, sound, and film, that addresses the impact of colonialism, migration and patriarchy. Co-commissioned by Exeter Phoenix and Phoenix Art Space (Brighton) the exhibition follows two years of intensive research to uncover the facts behind the story of the artist’s Great Aunt – the first Indian woman to be sentenced to be hanged in British colonial Kenya 1949.

Charlie Lewis Marffy’s practice focuses on his interest in building a visual language free-associatively through his paintings and drawings. Marffy explores combinations, references, interactions, networks, and idiosyncrasies across a vast array of sources. For this particular project Charlie has chosen four diverse books from a charity shop and responded to their content with a drawing installation.

Join the artist for an informal discussion and walk through the exhibition with Phoenix Gallery curator Matt Burrows.