Summer At Towner Gallery
Have you been to Towner Eastbourne, Art Fund Museum of the Year? We recommend a trip this summer during your stay in Eastbourne, to experience a wide range of exhibitions, outdoor commissions and more…
German artist Lothar Götz has transformed the exterior walls of Towner with his large-scale, colourful geometric artwork, Dance Diagonal (2019). Götz, who is based in the UK, was chosen from 60 artists and designers from an open call for the Brewers Towner Commission to create an artwork to mark the 10th anniversary of the gallery’s move from its original home in Eastbourne’s Old Town. The mural is now an iconic feature of the Eastbourne landscape, seen and loved across Instagram.
Visit 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, often overshadowed by his brother Paul. In a career spanning more than seven decades, Nash - an official war artist in the First and Second World Wars, as well as a keen plantsman and comic illustrator - produced work across a range of mediums. See iconic oil paintings from some of Britain’s most important collections, as well as accomplished wood engravings, line-drawings, lithographs and watercolours.
A poetic and cohesive meditation on man’s relationship with the sea and exploration of its role in the history of slavery, migration, and conflict - Vertigo Sea by John Akomfrah - comes to Towner with the context of the gallery’s location on the southern coastline of England, and the constantly changing boundary between land and sea. One to check out.
Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball takes a kaleidoscopic approach to her practice, mediating between science, archaeology, and the visual arts and exploring the way in which these disciplines describe the world. The artist has delved deep into the Towner Collection to discover works that have rarely been displayed and will present these alongside familiar and much-loved depictions of the Sussex landscape.
Why not check out Waterfronts: England’s Creative Coast? Inspired by local archaeological sites, Mariana Castillo Deball has also created a public artwork that plays out across the streets of Eastbourne, into Towner’s building and out to the South Downs. Mixing historical fact with fiction to create a layered mythology, Castillo Deball constructs a narrative in three parts around The Frankish Woman – whose ancient remains were discovered at the Anglo-Saxon cemetery on St Anne’s Hill. Along the streets of Eastbourne pedestrians will discover a chalk-stencilled rope that traces an unexpected route through the town, outlining the work’s eponymous silhouette of a woman’s profile. Followers of the trail encounter several sculptural objects embedded in the fabric of the street, each relating to objects the woman was buried with, such as glass beads, brooches or a blade. A third element to the work takes place out of the town: the shape of a giant hairpin, the most magnificent of the funerary objects, will be inscribed in chalk at Whitbread Hollow on the Downs.
You can also have a look at Towner’s website for an accompanying geo-tour. Take part in England’s Creative Coast’s Geotour and uncover Towner’s unique series of Geocaches at various locations around Eastbourne. Follow the digital GPS trail, using hints to hunt out a series of hidden objects. Log your finds to uncover the hidden stories of Eastbourne, both now and in the past.
Art Night’s fifth edition is taking place in locations across the United Kingdom for the first time this summer, and of course Towner have made sure that Eastbourne is top of the list! Art Night will curate a series of billboards across the country by Guerilla Girls as part of their new commission titled The Male Graze – their largest UK public project in the UK to date which will explore bad male behaviour. See it in Eastbourne on Longstone Road in Seaside from 18 June - 18 July.
The Towner also 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. The exhibition is supported by Eastbourne Arts Circle.
Look forward to hearing what you saw and enjoyed at Towner Gallery when you #stayatport.