All change, please. All change. I hate to mention autumn, but there are loads of exciting new exhibitions coming to East Sussex this month! If you’re still trying to keep the summer mood alive (and I don’t blame you), there’s still a few weeks left to see some of the exhibitions which have been open for a while.

Pulling this list together has given me the shove I needed to plan out trips to some of the exhibitions which I haven’t seen yet.

Got any exhibition intel I’ve missed? Drop me a comment below!

Featured image: Towner Gallery, Eastbourne

Arts and Heritage Festivals in September

Heritage Open Days (6 to 15 September 2024)

A community-led festival of history and culture, offering the opportunity to visit places which aren’t normally open, or which you’ve been meaning to see but have never made the time. Check out their website for an extensive list of East Sussex locations (as well as further afield).

Coastal Currents Arts Festival (31 August 2024 to 31 September 2024)

An annual celebration of arts and culture across the 1066 region and Eastbourne. Have a look at the website for info on artists open houses, events and exhibitions.

Exhibitions in Brighton and Hove

Brighton Museum and Art Gallery is due to reopen on 14th September, following roof repairs. As well as the nicely fixed up roof, you can see:

• NEW: Wildlife Photographer of the Year, over 100 awe-inspiring images which have taken a trip to the coast from the Natural History Museum (14 September 2024 to 16 March 2025).
• See the Sea, a display of sea and beach scenes (until May 2025).

Preston Manor and Gardens have an interactive experience about the Opium War on at the moment called Shadows of Empire: Taking Tea at Preston Manor which looks really interesting. It only runs on Saturdays and Sundays for two time slots, so you’re going to want to pre-book this one (until 27th October 2024).

Hove Museum of Creativity has a couple of September options:

• FINISHING SOON: Matisse: Drawing with Scissors is a Hayward Gallery touring exhibition featuring 35 prints of his collages (until 1 September 2024).
• NEW: The Mechanical Circus is a circus themes exhibition featuring ten automata, a film and an interactive build zone (21 September 2024 to 23 February 2025).

Exhibitions in East Sussex Towns

Exhibitions in Bexhill-on-Sea

The De La Warr Pavilion is changing exhibitions this month:

• FINISHING SOON: Day and Heavy, Judah Leaves is Rebecca Bellantoni’s first major solo exhibition. Using sculpture and installation, it explores the relationship between Bellantoni and her godmother (until 1 September 2024).
• FINISHING SOON: Barbara Kasten: Site Lines is the US artist’s first solo exhibition in a UK public gallery. Drawing inspiration from the De La Warr Pavilion’s architecture, this is a brightly coloured site-specific exhibition (until 8 September 2024).
• Tschabalala Self: Seated has been in situ on DLWP Lawns since April 2023, but the end date is coming up soon (until 29 September 2024).
• NEW: Mike Silva is a London based artist painting from his personal photographic archive of 1990s to early 2000s London. The artworks on display will include portraits, interiors, still lifes and landscapes (21 September 2024 to 19 January 2025).
• NEW: Callum Hill: E-Minor is a site-specific installation with a film commissioned by DLWP which is a thirteen minute visual essay capturing themes of grief, time and memory. It includes video from New York, the UK, Ireland and Sardinia (21 September 2024 to 19 January 2025).

Exhibitions in Eastbourne

The Towner is also changing exhibitions this month:

• FINISHING SOON: Maria Amidu: in the perpetual back and forth – an installation which incorporates paper and spoken word. The spoken word piece is the artist grappling with reading her work in Yoruba, her mother tongue – for me this conveyed the artist’s idea of longing and memory more strongly than the paper pieces. If you want to get involved, time your visit with the 4pm blast of air which disrupts the display. Ideal for anyone who either wants to be part of the art through what the artist describes as a ‘soft performative role’ or who enjoys tidying up. I probably fall into the second camp (until 8th September).
• Emma Stibbon: melting ice rising tides connects environmental issues in the arctic with the Sussex coastline. I was surprised to see how large some of her artworks were, considering they are often watercolours. There’s also an installation piece based around the erosion of the Seven Sisters, the famous East Sussex chalk cliffs. It looks like this was previously a paid exhibition which has been made free during the summer holidays – I’m not sure if it’ll become paid again once the kids are back at school (until 15th September).
• NEW: Shape Pattern Colour: The Art of Printmaking is an exhibition of lithographs, linocuts and illustrations celebrating the career of Robert Taverner (19 September 2024 to 5 November 2024).
• NEW: Jielemeguvvie guvvie sjisjnjeli – Film inside an image is a film showing a 360-degree panoramic display inside the natural history diorama at Biologist Museet in Stockholm. The title is Southern Sámi, an endangered Nordic language. I don’t often have the patience for video art, but this sounds really interesting (21 September 2024 to 21 April 2025).

Exhibitions in Hastings

Hastings Contemporary is another gallery which will change exhibitions mid-way through the month. I’ve seen the Elias Sime and Quentin Blake exhibitions and recommend trying to see them before they finish:

• FINISHING SOON: Elias Sime: Eregata showcases the Ethiopian artist’s use of found and recycled materials, particularly electrical equipment, to create gigantic artworks, some evoking city maps (until 8 September 2024).
• FINISHING SOON: Quentin Blake: 100 Portraits is one of those soothing nostialgia exhibitions for me. 100 portraits created in the artist’s distinctive style, in a variety of sizes and mediums. I don’t think these are based on real people, but we enjoyed picking out the ones who looked like people we knew (until 8 September 2024).
• SHORT TERM: Out Front is a two-day pop up show from the talented gallery team at Hastings Contemporary. This is part of the Coastal Currents Arts Festival (7 to 8 September 2024).
• NEW: Immortal Apples, Eternal Eggs explores two of the UK’s most significant still life collections, The Ingram Collection and the David and Indrė Roberts collection, and features many well known artists, including Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson. The aim is to challenge assumptions about this genre, and I am looking forward to having my assumptions (that I’m not really into still life) challenged (21 September 2024 to 16 March 2025).

Hastings Museum and Art Gallery has a couple of exhibitions to explore:

• On the Edge of Nothingness by local artist Jo Israel. The museum’s website explains these works as ‘the shadow imprints left on the back of the pages of engraved illustrations, formed as the result of the ink soaking into the fabric of the paper over many years, partially exposing, like ghosts, the images hidden on the reverse’ (until 6th October 2024).
• NEW: The Corinne Corbett-Thompson Exhibition includes the artists recent work linking art and the environment (28 September 2024 to 12 January 2025).

Hastings Fishermen’s Museum is celebrating 200 years of the RNLI. The website doesn’t have many details, but I think’s it on till the end of October.

Hastings History House has an exhibition about Australian connections to Hastings and Hastings Lifeboats. Another one where I’m not sure, but I think it’s on until the end of October.

Exhibitions in Lewes

Yet another gallery changing exhibitions this month is Charleston in Lewes. I seriously need to get round all of the older exhibitions sharpish!

• FINISHING SOON: Duos: The Art of Collaboration, which celebrates the artistic collaboration of a large group of artistic pairs (until 8th September 2024).
• FINISHING SOON: Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story combines nicely with the Duos exhibition. It explores the hidden story of the artists’ romantic relationship and artistic collaboration (until 8th September 2024).
• NEW: Collecting Modernism: Pablo Picasso to Winifred Nicholson explores the creation of an art collection built and shared across three queer homes, where the art was displayed and lived with: Eddie Sackville-West, Eardley Knollys, and Mattei Radev. This sounds right up my street (25 September 2024 to 2 March 2025).
• NEW: Grayson Perry: A Temple for Everyone explores the meaning of home through the artist’s work, and features textiles, pots, tiles and woodcuts. This is another must-see for me (25 September 2024 to 2 March 2025).

Exhibitions in Rye

Lamb House continues it’s 300th birthday celebrations this month! Learn about the history of the building and it’s famous former inhabitants, including author Henry James. Lamb House is open Friday-Tuesday, and isn’t open all year round – I have yet to time a visit to Rye with it being open, but hopefully I’ll get there in time to see this exhibition (until 3 November 2024).

Rye Art Gallery‘s exhibition En Plein Air is now open, and features the work of artists who paint outside (until 29 September 2024).

Exhibitions in the East Sussex Countryside

A new addition to the list, Bateman’s in Burwash has some exhibitions on this month. They are very on brand, because when I think of Bateman’s, I think of Rudyard Kipling and I think of needlecraft.

• NEW: Claire Fletcher: Illustrating the Jungle Book. This is a collection of new work by a local artist inspired by the book, which was published 130 years ago. There will also be Christmassy additions from 15 November (7 September 2024 to 5 January 2025).
• NEW: Marta Munoz: Illustrating the Jungle Book. Another birthday celebration for The Jungle Book, this time by Spanish artist Marta Munoz. It will be interesting to see the different things that inspired each artist so I’ll try and see these together (7 September to 3 November 2024).
• SHORT TERM: If Only, a British Tapestry Group weaving exhibition. This draws loose inspiration from the title of Kipling’s famous poem, but weavers of all levels have been free to interpret the brief as they wished. Weaving is one type of textile craft which I haven’t tried for myself, so I’m keen to drop in and be inspired (14 to 29 September 2024).

Farleys House and Gallery in Chiddingly has four exhibitions on this month:

• FINISHING SOON: Listen to What you See showcases Amy Grantham’s kaleidoscopic pastel brights in her first solo exhibition (until 1 September 2024).
• Farleys 75 Years, I Remember celebrates 75 years since Lee Miller and Roland Penrose moved to Farleys with photographs of visitors over the years alongside video interviews with people who spent time at the farmhouse (until 31 October 2024).
• Lee and LEE will be pairing Lee Millers photography with stills from the new Kate Winslet film, LEE, which comes out in September (until 31 October 2024).
• NEW: Beneath this Mask is a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition of self-portraits by Claude Cahun. I saw this exhibition at the Beeney in Canterbury, and the staging in the photographs is really interesting (5 September to 31 October 2024).

Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft has an exhibition called Blooming Brilliant: The Life and Work of Raymond Briggs, which I still need to see. It combines artworks with items from the late artist’s Sussex home (until 27 October 2024).

There are two exhibitions at Charleston Farmhouse in Firle right now. Both are on till 13th October. I went to Charleston for the first time recently, and I really enjoyed both of these.

• Matthew Smith: Through the eyes of Patrick Heron – this exhibition showcases both artists, and also explores the Post-Impressionist Smith’s influence on Modernist Heron. I adored both artists’ use of colour.
• Anne Rothenstein is an artist who uses both paint and collage to create somewhat surreal imagery. I love her distinctive figures, but the haunting Unknown Territory 1 is the painting which I keep coming back to.

Which of these exhibitions do you want to see?