Welcome to Hampshire Artists Exhibitions, home of Hampshire Open Studios 2011 and Best of Hampshire Artists and Eye on the World photographers.

Hampshire Open Studios will be back in its full format in 2011 with Anne Middleton and Pete Gilbert taking over the admin and catalogue production of this highly popular county wide art trail.

So far 170 artists have signed up for the 2011 Open Studio event and Anne and Pete are absolutely thrilled with the outcome. Set to take place between 20th and 29th August with a variety of artists, photographers, textiles, scultures, and wood carvers, it promises to be an exiting event. Some artists will be opening their studios and offering tea and refreshments with donations going to charities. Catalogues will be availble from the beginning of August. For more information please see this Hampshire Open Studios link.

The Solent Art Trail took place between 14th August to 30th August inclusive, as part of Hampshire Open Studios 2010. The exhibition comprised paintings, photography, glass, textiles, printmaking, sculpture and ceramics by local artists in their studios in Netley, Hamble and Hedge End. Please view the Solent Art Trail page.

Also new for 2010 was Along These Lines - an exhibition of work in the following media:- pencil, pastel, charcoal, pen and ink, lino cuts, prints, engraving, lithographs, calligraphy, illustrations and cartoons.
This took place during October at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens. Please see below for more details on other art shows at Hilliers. Please follow the link to Along These Lines for full information.

We stage a number of art and photography shows at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens near Romsey, Hampshire. This centre also features the work of sculptures artists in its Art in the Garden exhibition which regularly changes to show new work. Tourists visit this venue by the coach load.

Anne Middleton, based in Southampton, is the driving force behind this small, informal group of artists and photographers. Anne has put on numerous exhibitions over the years but recently has concentrated on two annual shows at Hilliers Gardens.

In September 2006 Anne staged the first Best of Hampshire Artists (BOHA) show, a juried exhibition, which ran for the whole of September. In 2007 the BOHA show raised the standard higher and sales increased by 400%. In 2008 the art show exceeded the previous year's sales again. A new category of Affordable Art was introduced where every postcard sized original was sold for the same modest price of £10.00, ensuring that good art is within the price range of everyone. Buyers cleared the Affordable Art gallery. Some of the regular artists are Ron Moody and Helen Brown.

So successful have the art shows been that Hilliers asked Anne to put on a Photographic Exhibition in February 2007 entitled Eye on the World. Stunning photographs depicting the natural world in all its glory, including the New Forest, British Birds and Animals, exotic Orchids, Big Cats and Polar Bears, ensured the show was a great success. This has now become an annual photographic exhibition which takes place at the same venue.

‘Our World Through the Lens’ will again show the work of talented Hampshire photographers displaying a wide range of images of all aspects of our planet, from landscape to seascape, flora to flora and, next year for the first time prizes will be offered to various categories of images. Prizes will be presented at the Preview of the exhibition.

An exhibition in January 2009, called It's a Material World featured the beautiful work of fabric artists. Following the amazing success of the first ‘Material World’ exhibition at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, a second show took place in October 2010. The exhibition received accolades from all around the textile community and Anne says she will find it hard to select new participants from the large number of people who have applied to take part. Anne is looking for new and different types of textile art to compliment last year’s exhibition.

December will feature a Christmas Craft Fair at Hilliers Gardens. A good variety of crafts will be available to purchase. For dates and more details please see Craft Fair page.


For further details of all exhibitions and how you can become involved, contact Anne on annesart@talktalk.net.
.