I have one of my artworks in a show that is opening on Saturday September 12th.
THE COT OPEN brings together emerging and established UK & Ireland based artists to create a dynamic exhibition of fresh, compelling work for audiences and collectors.
This year’s theme, INSIDE |OUT, invites artists to explore the sensation of stepping beyond oneself — that out‑of‑body moment, a sense of dislocation, a separation from time, identity, or place.
The venue is in the beautiful countryside of the Kent Weald about fifteen miles south of Maidstone and about the same distance from the East Sussex coast at Rye. Find the venue at:
Weavers Cot
Cot Lane
Biddenden
Kent TN27 8JB
Curator and organiser Jemimah Patterson says about the opening:
“This promises to be a wonderful afternoon to meet the artists, connect with fellow art lovers, and view this exciting new selling exhibition with a glass of wine in the garden. We will also be announcing the winner of the £1,000 art prize during the opening event.”
The exhibition will run through until Sunday, 4 October 2026.
Leila Alexander of White Cube and collector François Delage – have selected 25 outstanding artists to exhibit their work at The Cot:
Julie Annis | Mark Bletcher | Alex Calinescu | Charlotte Cundell | Yingjie Deng | Robin Dixon | Simon Fell | Kathleen Herbert | Geoffrey Howe | Mandy Hudson | Caroline Jane Harris | Carrie Jean Goldsmith | Rachel Karasik | Paul Lemmon | Sam Lock | Emily Marston | Jason Mulligan | Lucy Newman | Mirja Oksanen | Jemimah Patterson | Elizabeth Power | Rachel Schwalm | Shirin Town | Felicity Warbrick | Wilma Woolf
About Unexpected Item
When I first posted this online in an artists forum, The painter Paula MacArthur commented:
“It looks like both an ancient artefact and a 3D logo/icon/emoji.
A relic that has time travelled back to the 21st century. Beautifully succinct in summing up the time we find ourselves in.”
The object is totally impractical, it is a shopping basket and it isn’t, the hollow structure would not allow it to hold anything much.
By focussing on this every-day object I am changing it’s status to that of an artwork – we have to wonder about it’s place in our lives – I am suggesting we look at this object again and think about what it means
It’s a container of meaning – as an icon it holds the symbolism of whatever shopping means to you. So that could be any number of ideas and feelings, memories and aspirations. It could be an emptiness or it could represent fulfilment. In marketing terms fulfilment means delivering the goods to the person who needs them. Is there a question here in the word fulfilment about whether shopping could ever really fulfil our real needs and desires?
If anything Unexpected Item is full of questions about contemporary life.