Current Exhibitions

Clare Woods: The Dark Matter
25 May - 2 September
Galleries 1-4

This major exhibition explores the paintings of British artist Clare Woods.

The show features a number of new paintings made especially for Southampton City Art Gallery. Some derive from photographs then drawings of the land; including standing stones, ditches, roots or pools. Using oil paint on aluminium, the artist creates controlled layers of intense paint that form images where colours and shapes swim together to create less recognisable and more abstract forms.
Also on display is the large scale work, Carpenter’s Curve, which has been commissioned by the Olympic Delivery Authority as one of two paintings to be transformed into a public artwork for the Olympic Park Utilities Buildings in London 2012. This show explores the subjects behind these monumental works, and the creation of this significant commission.

To coincide with her exhibition, Woods, who was Southampton born, has selected artworks from the Gallery’s permanent collection, many of which inspired her during regular visits to the Gallery as a child.

Image credit: Clare Woods, Funnelled Hole, oil on aluminium 2011. Copyright The Artist, courtesy of Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London

25 May - 2 September, galleries 5 & 6

Drawing from the permanent collection, Rapid Formations brings together a group of artworks where the creation process has been guided, either partially or completely, by a system of rules and limitations that were predetermined by the artist.

This special collection display focuses on the video artwork, Chasing 1,000 (1994), an hour-long film piece by Glaswegian artist Roderick Buchanan in which the artist and his friend Paul Maguire header a basketball back and forth to each other, with the aim of eventually reaching 1000 headers.

Rapid Formations originated in a competition organised by the Contemporary Art Society. Starting Point invited young curators to choose a video artwork from Southampton City Art Gallery’s collection and to create an exhibition around it. Neil Jefferies was one of the winners of this new initiative.

Image credit: Roderick Buchanan, Chasing 1000 (video still) 1994, copyright The Artist

10am-5pm Daily | Admission: Free

The main hall shows highlights from the collection, including twentieth century and contemporary British painting and sculpture. A strong cluster within the main hall features Post-Impressionism, notably the Camden Town Group.

The Baring Room exhibits a complete series of gouache works by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones on the Story of Perseus.

The Perseus series are ten cartoons in gouache for a series of large oil paintings commissioned in 1875 for London home of the British statesman and arts patron Arthur Balfour (1848-1930). Pre-Raphaelite Burne-Jones worked on the series for ten years, but never completed all the paintings due to ill health.

The Perseus series is based on a number of Greek myths. Essentially, it is a heroic tale of knight-errantry and the triumph of good over evil. Perseus, son of the God Zeus is sent to rescue the beautiful Andromeda and kill the Gorgon Medusa. The legend has been popular in art since antiquity. Rubens, Titian and Delacroix all painted aspects of it. Burne-Jones depicts the main episodes to form a coherent and engaging narrative.

image shown: The Baleful Head

5 May – 16 July
Gallery Foyer

This exhibition explores the dream like fantastical characters and situations created by artist Sally Holt.
Holt uses a mixture of processes and mediums to create each piece; from oil paint to colour pencil, then using Photoshop she ties them together with the end product being a print.
Holt studied Illustration at Bristol UWE and graduated in 2009. She currently works as a scenic artist for Welsh National Opera alongside creating her own Illustrative pieces.
Image Credit: Sally Holt Dog at Sea © the artist