Surface

28/02/2025

ARTIST TALK!

Come along this Saturday for a chat with the NTU students who took part in the 2025 NTU festival: The Push and The Pull!

Free entry as always

24/02/2025

NTU Festival: The Push and the Pull
Exhibition dates: 26th February - 1st March, Main Gallery
Opening Night: Tuesday 25th February, 6-8pm

This February sees the return of the annual Surface collaboration with Nottingham Trent University with the 14th NTU Festival: The Push and the Pull. Following the success of last year's festival, The Island, this year's selected Fine Art students will use a critical and reflective approach to curate group exhibitions in response to the festival's theme The Push and the Pull by exploring ideas such as closeness and distance, belonging and not belonging, the pull of childhood nostalgia and push of adult expectations.

Week Two
Tethered Transitions
Rose Dias / Charlotte Gee / Nikola Liwora
Step into a world caught between then and now, where childhood memories tangle with the weight of growing up. Crochet webs stretch like lifelines, holding onto fragments of the past, while pools of shifting slime slip through your fingers—uncertain, ungraspable. In this space, play and responsibility collide, innocence lingers, and time pulls in opposing directions. Tethered Transitions invites you to navigate the push and pull of becoming, where every step forward tugs at the threads of what came before.

Tension
Samuel Basham / Xin Chen / He Jiang
Tension is jointly curated by three multimedia artists. The exhibition features sculpture, painting, installation, and video, and explores the tensions and connections between artist and audience, colour and medium, and the push/pull dynamics of time, creation, imagination, and reality.

Artist Talk: Saturday 1st March, 2pm

The second week of the NTU Festival: The Push and the Pull opens in the Main Gallery and Project Space. As always, there will be a donations bar with ales from local brewery, Pheasantry.

Free Entry: Everyone Welcome

16/02/2025

NTU Festival: The Push and the Pull
18th February – 1st March
Opening Nights: Tuesday 18th and Tuesday 25th February 6-8pm
This February sees the return of the annual Surface collaboration with Nottingham Trent University with the 14th NTU Festival: The Push and the Pull.

Following the success of last year's festival, The Island, this year's selected Fine Art students will use a critical and reflective approach to curate group exhibitions in response to the festival's theme The Push and the Pull by exploring ideas such as closeness and distance, belonging and not belonging, the pull of childhood nostalgia and push of adult expectations.

Week One
Precious Time
Indigo Gow / Zofia Skindzier / Holly White
Exhibition dates: 19th- 22nd February, Main Gallery
Opening Night: Tuesday 18th February, 6-8pm

Precious Time is an immersive exploration of the push and the pull between memory and the present moment, expressed through photography, video, sculpture and installation. Our habit as human beings to romanticise the past causes us to rush through the present, creating a perpetual cycle of longing. The exhibition reflects personal and collective tethers with the past while simultaneously grounding audiences in the now.

Knotts of Tension
Amber Clarke / Tilly Wattam
Exhibition dates: 19th- 22nd February, Project Space
Opening Night: Tuesday 18th February, 6-8pm

Knotts tighten. Threads fray. The weight of expectation pulls one way, the force of chance pushes another. Knotts of Tension stretches across the space like an unresolved question spiralling through the mind. woven from conflict, pulled taut with longing. Threads tangle, fabric strains, sculptural forms distort under the unseen forces of pressure. To step inside is to feel the weight of identity, the tension of belonging, the chaos of being caught between past and future.

Artist Talk: Saturday 1st March, 2pm

The NTU Festival: The Push and the Pull opens in the Main Gallery and Project Space. As always, there will be a donations bar with ales from local brewery, Pheasantry.

Free Entry: Everyone Welcome

04/02/2025

LAST FEW DAYS of the 2025 International Postcard Show, don't forget to come down and vote for your favourite postcard!

14/01/2025

Come along this Saturday at 12 where we have exhibiting artist David Irish in the gallery for a talk! It’s a great opportunity to meet the incredible and ask any questions you may have.

As always, free entry and everyone is welcome!

10/01/2025

SNEAK PEAK of the setup for TONIGHT'S OPENING!!

We have three exciting exhibitions on to kick off the new year.

Main Gallery: The International Postcard Show

Le Loovre: Lazurite: A Solo Exhibition by Zillah Farey

Project Space: Dave's World: A Solo Exhibition by Dave Irish

Opens at 6PM with free entry to all.

05/01/2025

Lazurite: A Solo Exhibition by Zillah Farey
11th January – 8th February
Opening Night: Friday 10th January

Surface is delighted to welcome Zillah Farey, winner of the coveted People’s Prize for last year’s International Postcard Show, and an exhibition entitled, Lazurite.

Lazurite features art fashion style illustrations with a focus on portraiture, form, and use of colour. The illustrations are mixed media and are notable for Farey’s signature use of blue ballpoint pen. Anyone familiar with Farey’s artwork from previous postcard and street art exhibitions will instantly recognise this truly distinctive use of colour, which again predominates throughout this collection of illustrations.

Lazurite takes place in our alternative exhibition space, Le Loovre, and opens in conjunction with the International Postcard Show 2025 in the main gallery and Dave’s World: A Solo Exhibition by Dave Irish in the project space.

30/12/2024

Deadline is January 3rd!

18/12/2024

An amazing response to the Tracey Meek fundraiser for an amazing lady. We hope that our small contribution helps Tracey's family through this sad and difficult time. RIP Tracey Meek

Tracey was a breath of fresh air—a talented artist, a cherished friend, a fabulo… Lisa L needs your support for Help Us To Give Tracey the Brightest Send-Off

08/12/2024

We are sad to share the news of yet another life lost too soon. Last week, as many of you will know by now, we learnt of the passing of Surface studio artist, Tracey Meek. Tracey was one of our newer studio artists, but made a very positive impression while she was here; we know she will be missed. Surface would like to offer condolences to family, friends, and collaborators; to all those who had the good fortune to know this talented, busy, and very popular lady.

01/12/2024

Final shout for our friends over in Leicester, and their community share project. Good luck, guys! Fingers crossed it all comes together🤞🤞

One last reminder from us that you can spread the cost of getting involved with our share offer fundraising from as little as £5 a month.

This is a difficult time of year for everyone financially, and we know getting £50 together (the share offer minimum) is tricky at the best of times.

We want to make sure as many people as possible can get involved in this fundraising project, so if this is an option that could work for you please have a look.

Subscribers will have all the same benefits of membership as any other investor, including involvement in our decision making and the ability to get involved hands-on with running the society. Those who have contributed through Crowdfunder can also set up a subscription to increase their total invested amount.

Subscribers can invest between £50-£1000 in total, spread through monthly payments between December ‘24-September ‘25.

There is a short google form to fill in to apply for a subscription: forms.gle/WkBEmdKoRrXZfyzg7

01/12/2024

Brain Dump: A Solo-Exhibition by Sue Clegg

30th November- 14th December

Surface is delighted to present our Derby Print Open 2024 winner, Sue Clegg, with her solo-exhibition 'Brain Dump' in La Loovre.

Clegg is a multi media artist responding to connection and memory of places, people, objects and story. Drawing informs a large part of her work, the process sketching bringing both inspiration and a sense of connection to place. ‘Travels With My Sketchbook’ (aka ‘Brain Dump’) is an installation of work in response to sketches Clegg has made whilst visiting Cumbria and the Lakes over the last few years, exploring colour and line utilising different materials and processes including print, vinyl and textiles. The title aka ‘brain dump’ refers to the constant and almost overwhelming stream of ideas and changes experienced during the creative process. The work included represents a few of ideas shared at the time of installation.

'Brain Dump' will run in conjunction with our volunteer show 'Silver Surface' in the Main Gallery and '730 Daily Self-Portraits: A Solo-Exhibition by Chaz Howkins' in the Project Space.

23/11/2024

Silver Surface: Volunteer Show
30th November – 14th December
Opening: Friday 29th November, 18:00 - 21:00

Toby Birks / Khaz Castle / Lucy Davies / DogWallz / Bali Love Jenkins / Yang Jiang / Hanna Litvinova / Vanessa Long / Kiki Luo / Caitlin Martin / Charlotte Pimm-Smith / Nina Schembri / Andrew Spinks / Agnes Williams

Surface is delighted to present Silver Surface, our annual volunteer show, which this year commemorates the gallery’s 25th anniversary.

Silver Surface showcases a wide variety of artistic practices: embroidery, graffiti, interpretive dance, the comic book, insect taxidermy, poetry, and sculpture. There is a considered focus on the natural world with artists Toby Birks and Lucy Davies working exclusively with natural materials. Hanna Litvinova, Yang Jiang, and Caitlin Martin centre their works around the human form in acrylic, pencil and textile, respectively. Performance is prominent in this exhibition with Khaz Castle and DogWallz showing their work live during our opening night; Castle in the form of dance and DogWallz, who will be painting his piece throughout the duration of the show.

Silver Surface will take place in the Main Gallery, in conjunction with 730 Daily Self-Portraits: A Solo Exhibition by Chaz Howkins in the Project Space. As always, there will be a donation bar with refreshments including ales from local brewery, Pheasantry.

Free Entry: Everyone Welcome

19/11/2024

730 Daily Self-Portraits: A Solo Exhibition by Chaz Howkins

30th November - 14th December
Opening Night: Friday 29th November, 6-9pm

Surface welcomes Chaz Howkins and a solo exhibition entitled, 730 Daily Self-Portraits. Chaz Howkins has been creating daily self-portraits every day since January 1st 2021. 730 Daily Self-Portraits represents the first two years of this ongoing project. The series of daily self-portrait drawings and paintings started when the artist was feeling particularly uninspired to create new work and decided to set themself a challenge to create a self portrait every day for a month. This then extended to three months, six months, one year and finally the project settled into an ongoing daily practice extending well beyond the original month’s plan. Howkins now intends to continue creating a
self-portrait every day for as long as they are able.

Create Your Own Self-Portrait: Workshop
Saturday 7th December, 1 – 4pm
Join Chaz Howkins and create your own self-portrait using various drawing and collage techniques. Drawing inspiration from the exhibition around you, explore your own identities and feelings. No artistic skill or experience necessary. Stay for as little or as long as you like. All materials provided.
Free
Drop in

730 Daily Self-Portraits opens in the Project Space in conjunction with the annual Volunteer Show in the Main Gallery. As always, there will be a donation bar with ales from the local brewery, Pheasantry.

Free Entry: Everyone Welcome

Opening Hours:
Opening Night: Friday 29th November, 18:00 - 21:00
Tuesday to Friday: 12:00 -18:00 Saturday:
11:00 - 17:00
Where to Find Us:
16 Southwell Road
Nottingham
NG1 1DL

Email: [email protected]
Website: www.surfacegallery.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/surfacegallery
Twitter:
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14/11/2024

The International Postcard Show 2025: Call for Submissions

Surface invites artists from across the world to participate in our annual International Postcard Show.

All submissions will be included in this vibrant and hugely popular exhibition. The International Postcard Show will feature hundreds of original creations in an array of different media by established and aspiring artists from all over the world.

Artists can choose to have their work on sale during the exhibition; postcards will be priced at £15 each. If postcards remain unsold, all participants can have the opportunity to exchange their postcard with another artist, who will be randomly selected at the end of the exhibition.

In the case of no sale or if you opt out of selling your work(s) and do not wish to take part in the international exchange, your postcards will be returned to you via post following the exhibition.

Deadline: Friday 3rd January 2025, 6pm

We will be awarding prizes for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place postcards, selected by the exhibition coordinators. There will also be our annual People’s Prize, where visitors to the exhibition will have a chance to vote for their favourite postcard. The creator of the selected postcard will win a free exhibition in Le Loovre.

Application form: www.surfacegallery.org/opportunities

Please read the application form carefully to ensure that your work fits the exhibition criteria.

1st Prize = £100 sponsored by Opulent Art
2nd Prize = A Year’s subscription to Aesthetica Magazine
3rd Prize = £25 Etsy gift card
People’s Prize = Free Exhibition in Le Loovre

Submission Deadline = Friday 3rd January 2025, 6pm

Opening Night = January 10th 2025: 6 - 9pm
Exhibition = January 11th - February 8th 2025
www.surfacegallery.org / [email protected]

06/11/2024

EM24: Escape Simplicity: Artist Talks
Saturday 9th November, 2pm

This Saturday at 2pm, Surface will be hosting the Artist Talks for EM24: Escape Simplicity. Join seven of the very finest Fine Art graduates for an intriguing take on the exhibition, as the artists discuss their individual artwork and the collective journey made over the month-long residency.

These talks are informal and there will be time for questions throughout the tour.

Mist forecast for the morning according to the BBC, but lifting by 1pm just in time for your journey in for this years talks. All will be revealed :)

Free Entry: Everyone Welcome