Little Theatres Exhibition at The New Theatre Royal

The New Theatre Royal has had a great response to their call for artwork for their Little Theatres Art Exhibition. We mentioned this in a previous post a few weeks ago. The exhibition was opened by Sheila Hancock yesterday and all works can currently be seen in their Circle Gallery. Participants from all ages have exhibited a wide range of work in different formats. Well worth a visit along with grabbing a coffee and something to eat at the Conservatory Cafe.

Call for Artists submissions: Say What You See

Aspex Gallery have launched a new exhibition ‘Say What You See’ and are looking for participants.

The show will begin with one piece and the exhibition will grow as an additional work is added each week.

If you are an artist living within a 60minute journey of Portsmouth and you feel that a work of yours communicates in some way, with other works on display then please submit an image of the work (jpeg) and a brief explanation (up to 200 words) to saywhatyousee@aspex.org.uk

Find the blog here.

At Sea, Joanne Hummel-Newell

The Futurators

Imagine being a teenager and being able to curate an exhibition, go on some awesome trips and meet some amazing artists. Well that’s exactly what the Futurators do! Helping to inspire young people and engage them in art and culture. On March the 24th the Futurators exhibition will open as part of the Lost Hour in Portsmouth, more details soon.

The group are currently looking for a small amount of funding, if you want to help check out the video here.

Little Theatres Art Exhibition at The New Theatre Royal

Despite The New Theatre Royal undergoing it’s major redevelopment at the moment there is still much going on (as well as the cafe being open) including the upcoming Little Theatres art exhibition. The theatre wants to give the leaflet stands in the Dress Circle bar a makeover and would like people of all ages and artistic ability to get creative. The theatre would like you to create miniature scenes to fill one of the 44 leaflet stands, depicting the history of the theatre, or just what you love about the theatre. You can even get into the Dickens spirit and create your favourite scene of a Dickens classic. The only limitations are the space, so here are the dimensions to work within:

Height: 18.5 cm
Width: 16cm
Depth: 3.5cm

You can visit the Box office to pick up a leaflet stand to take home to work with (you will be required to leave contact details). You can also design stage curtains for your piece, or other backdrops of roughly A5 sizing if you wish. All miniature scenes must be set up on Monday 6th February by popping into the theatre on the day with your scenes ready to place or with the leaflet stand you collected.

This exhibition will take place on the 7th February and is just one of the many events happening on the day in celebration of Charles Dickens 200th birthday.

For more information and to register your interest, please email Cat as soon as possible at lm@newtheatreroyal.com. All entrants must register their interest by 10pm on Monday 30 January so get involved quick!

Orbit Exhibition by Katayoun Dowlatshahi – Pictures

I visited the new First Floor Gallery to check out the Orbit exhibition the other day and grabbed a few photographs. I’ve been a fan of Katayoun’s work for a couple of years after visiting one of her open house art events and this exhibition has some wonderful new work. I particularly love the birds and the large fort pieces. Needless to say, try and make it down and catch the exhibition before it ends.

Also, the new gallery space is an incredible new addition to the cultural scene of Southsea and Portsmouth and something Portsmouth City Council and everyone involved should be applauded for making happen. I’m looking forward to seeing many future exhibitions in this new public space.

The exhibition will running until 28th January 2012 during library opening times

First Floor Gallery, Southsea Library, 19-21 Palmerston Road, Southsea, PO5 3QQ

Hooloovoo

Hooloovoo is a show by artist Cornelia Baltes, it opens this Saturday at Aspex Gallery 2-4pm. I really would encourage you to come down, if you cant make this Saturday then the show will be on till the 15th of April so plenty of time to catch it. I have been watching Cornelia install her work this week and I love it. Its playful, cute, colourful and humorous. The gallery is awash with tree trunks and stumps, adorable paintings and Cornelia pottering around covered in neon and pastel splatters of paint.

Orbit Exhibition by Katayoun Dowlatshahi

Southsea artist Katayoun Pasban Dowlatshahi has a new exhibition entitled Orbit that opened on Saturday in the new gallery space in Southsea Library, Palmerston Road. Katayoun is a highly acclaimer local artist who has had work exhibited internationally and many public commissions in the UK. Orbit is a touring exhibition and was on show at The West Gallery, Quay Arts, Isle of Wight and was brought to Southsea with the support of Portsmouth City Council.

The exhibition is in the new First Floor Gallery which is located upstairs above the new Southsea Library, expect this exhibition space to be home to many new exhibitions to come. Orbit will be open to the public during library hours through to the 28th January.

You can find out more about Katayoun’s work and this exhibition at:

www.katayoundowlatshahi.com

PRIMARY – A Phoneography Exhibition by Strong Island – Call for entries

A quick reminder about our latest exhibition PRIMARY, a Phoneography exhibition by Strong Island and we are even happier to announce that it’s open to you, the readers.

With the continuing increase in impressive camera technology in mobile phones and the ability to alter, tweak, post process and upload the photos to social media networks and websites like Instagram, the popularity of Phoneography has never been greater.

PRIMARY invites you to get out and about around Portsea with your mobile phone camera and take photos of anything and everything based around the three primary colours red, yellow and blue. What you photograph is entirely up to you, but submissions will only be accepted if they stick to the theme.

The call for entires has now begun and the deadline is the 31st of January 2012 with the exhibition being held in March of 2012. Photos can be taken on any mobile phone model and we ask that a maximum of 3 photos per applicant are sent in to primary@strong-island.co.uk.

Click here for more information.

Depthcharge Exhibition at Gunwharf Quays

I popped over to Gunwharf Quays on Saturday morning to check out the one day Depthcharge event exhibition at the old police station by the main gate. Wet Picnic, who arranged the whole day’s activities (including theatre and children’s activities as well as the exhibition) had taken over the police station and turned it in to an amazing space where it felt like you had travelled back in time to the days of HMS Vernon. The attention to detail was incredible and it overall really gave you a sense of seeing a period of Portsmouth’s history in some way.

The exhibition included work by local Portsmouth schools such as photography, story writing, a banner and later in the day there was also a dance performance. You might remember our call for ex-service personnel a little while ago, the final photography work by St John’s primary was there with two photo books and two framed photos. The framed photos contained a vintage photo of the main gate from the early 1900s and a modern interpretation taken by a year 6 pupil, to contrast and compare how the place has changed over the years.

You can find out more here: www.wetpicnic.com

Depth Charge exhibition designed by Sarah-Jane Prentice for Wet Picnic Theatre Company.

Gunwharf: Depthcharge

The Depthcharge event, forming part of the 10th anniversary celebrations of Gunwharf Quays, happens tomorrow (Sunday 4th December) by Wet Picnic at Gunwharf Quays. There are different options for you to see the contributed work by four local primary schools, and the amazing work of Wet Picnic:

You can become a Time Engineer by booking tickets (£5 each from the New Theatre Royal) which will give you a guided tour of performances and installations from 5pm onwards.

You can become a Time Follower (for FREE) by downloading the map from HERE and take yourself on a tour from 4.30pm onwards.

You can visit the Log Room Exhibition (where the Creative Writing created by Corpus Christi Primary School and the photography created by St Johns Cathedral Primary School will be on display) and see the banner by St Pauls Primary School from 12 noon onwards (head for the Police Station)!

You can watch the 5 minute dance performed by pupils from St Swithuns Primary School at 4.30pm outside the Police Station.

So why not come along and see what the time detectives discovered! For more information and to download your map visit:

www.wetpicnic.com/depthcharge

Below are a selection of B&W film photos taken by the St John’s Primary year 6 pupils taken with vintage, manual control cameras.

PRIMARY – Extended & Improved

We have some great news about our PRIMARY phonography exhibition (find out all the details here) that we can now announce:

- The deadline for submissions has now been extended to Sunday 4th March. We have had some incredible submissions but want to set aside more time to make the exhibition something really special.

- The competition is now open to up to 10 submissions from each individual. With the ability to capture many photos on your phone over the next two months we we want you to not feel restricted to just three. The same rules apply about the photos conforming to compositions using the primary colours though. If you have already submitted feel free to send more photos over as and when you please.

- The exhibition will be hosted by Albert Road’s own Bonzo Studio who are also partnering up with us in the creation of the exhibition space. More news on this soon!

- Finally, we will be running a competition as part of the exhibition where the best three photos submitted will win some incredible prizes. We will be announcing the prizes available very soon but got to say, these will be the best prize haul we have ever offered.

- We will be putting together a poster for the exhibition that will be on sale on the opening night. The poster will feature some of the best submissions and all profits from the sales will go to a local charity (details to follow soon). Due to this we need to say that any photos submitted to PRIMARY will involve you giving us permission to use them for commercial purposes, if you do not want your photo used in this way simply let us know via email.

Well, that is it for now! We really hope to drum up as much coverage locally for PRIMARY in the next couple of months so if you could Facebook/Tweet/+1 about the exhibition we would really appreciate it. We would love this exhibition to be a real reflection of the whole population of Portsmouth with everyone taking part and feeling involved.

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage