One of my biggest achievements with my art so far was my first ever solo art exhibition which took place in September 2018. It was such an incredible thing to see all my artwork displayed all together as one large body of work, which had been years and years in the making. While I was preparing for the event, I had come to a decision that this would be a moment which would either be a clear "no, this is not the direction" or "yes, carry on". I was never going to stop painting, but I needed to know if I could make this a full-time career, and to see if my artwork would actually sell. As you've probably guessed, since your reading this, it did go well!
As you can tell from this images, it wasn't a clean, white walled gallery. It was actually an old, crumbling church which is being used by City Arts Newbury who have created an art community here, and plan on renovating the building. Despite my concerns about the appearance, I actually had quite a few people say that they actually liked the more rustic look which was interesting.
It definitely took a lot of work to set everything up. It took us two whole days to clean the place up and get all the artwork hung in the right place, but it was worth the effort in the end!
The exhibition started with a private view on the Friday evening, and then went on over the weekend. Along with the canvas paintings, I also had some framed work for sale as well as greeting cards and prints. The space was so large, which meant I could also display some of my work from college and school.
These two pictures below show the space before we had transformed it.
After:
Overall, it was such a memorable highlight in my life, and I am so grateful for everyone who turned up to have a look or purchased work, as it was so encouraging for me. If you would be interested in coming to my next event, the details are in the "about" section of my website, and I will be posting reminders on social media, so make sure you follow me on facebook to keep updated!
- Sophie
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