Granite and Gesso

This exhibition runs until the 4th October 2026. Aleksandra Kasuba was born in Lithuania where she grew up at Ginkunai Manor with an idyllic life until World War II changed everything.  Her family manor was nationalised and her family left for Kaunus while she was left to finish school in Siauliai.  She then went on to study ceramics but her education was interrupted by Soviet and Nazi occupations.  She fled with her soon to be husband, the sculptor Vytautus Kasuba. In 1947, the couple moved to the United States and Aleksandra began work as a Ceramicist initially.  Her art progressed from ceramics though.  I think initially, it began where ceramics met mosaics but soon she was making the most incredible walls, using bricks as her mosaic pieces.  From here, she began working in 3D and her art pushed the boundaries.  Without a doubt, her vision has inspired many artists and architects. The exhibition began with a timeline of her life and work along one w...

This exhibition runs until the 27th September 2026. This is a smaller exhibition at Tate St Ives, in gallery 10, but some of the best things come in smaller packages.  I absolutely adored this exhibition.  The complex geometrical forms and patterns were just awe inspiring.  These were objects I wanted to take home and study, to touch and really get to know.  I sometimes, with such gloriously complex shapes, that I can not quite hold them in my head.  I don't know how artists such as Halima manage to conceive of them, let alone produce them. There were a couple of sketches showing her ideas at an earlier stage but apart from that, all the items were sculptural.  Some were wall mounted panels or plaques.  Others were freestanding.  Each was monochrome and made from a single material but sometimes several items were combined to make a piece so that colours and materials were expanded. One important facet of these pieces is the play of light and shado...

This exhibition runs until the 1st November 2026 This is a delightfully curated exhibition with something for everyone.  They cleverly bring together different elements of their collection and have then filled in a few gaps with items from other collections held in Cornwall. Large banners with line drawings on are perhaps the first thing that really stands out.  I think these are copies of pictures from old books.  The original artwork would probably have been engravings.  I have always loved engravings.  Its a well developed and precise art of a particular time when books were first being mass produced.  The fine detail is always incredible and in blowing parts of these pictures up, it's incredible to see just how much detail there is.  The only thing is, there is no information about the origins of these pictures, so I am guessing a little.   These banners punctuated the exhibition, breaking up the different stories and myths the exhibition...

This exhibition ends on the 13th September 2026. In 2024 both Charlie Binns and Harriet Hellman were part of the Arctic Circle Artists Residency Programme.  They circumnavigated Svalbard aboard the MV Ortelius.  The work in this exhibition is the result of their dialogue with the landscapes they encountered. Charlie Binns is a photographer, sculpture and print maker who specialises in alternative techniques in photography.  Their part of the exhibition consisted of a number of photographs developed using salt water taken from the arctic.  The photographs were monochromatic and had a beautiful moody, dreamy quality.  I would like to have known a little more about the photographs.  There must have been stories attached to them, perspectives on the journey.  I think there is a part of me, as a scientist and lover of stories, that really wants photographs to come with that documentation of place.  As a collection though, this series felt a little eer...

This exhibition ends 28th June 2026. I was ever so glad I made it to this exhibition before it closed as it was so lovely.  I often go to exhibitions that make me think or inspire me but ones that just make me smile and delight me are rarer.  This was one of those.  I could very happily populate my house with these pictures. The two artists, Karen McEndoo and Katharine Nicholls both independently worked on the theme, to look at the delights, and dramas, of eating outdoors.  The stories both artists told worked really well together and it was such a coherent exhibition, that comprehensively covered the subject with such charm and humour. Full of charm, warmth and humour, every painting told a story.  While the two artists had quite different approaches, their paintings worked incredibly well together.  The room was full of colour.  I imagine many children must have enjoyed this exhibition too as the subjects were so accessible and relatable. I think my ...

I remember the fuss when the dogs first appeared in Redruth.  There is always someone who does not think money should be spent on art, that does not see it's value.  I always loved them for their joyful quirkiness.  I think time has judged them a success!  All the old grumbles are long forgotten though as they have been there since 2007 and are so much a part of the town now, no one remembers how much they did or did not cost.  Besides, very few things of that value last so long and will continue to last and be enjoyed so many. When Geevor mine closed in 1990 it was a huge loss to the area.  Of course, the mine lives on as a tourist attraction with a museum where people can visit the mine underground.  There is a gap between a working mine and a tourist attraction that requires a lot of tidying. David Kemp was based in West Cornwall near Botallack and when he received a call from a friend saying loads of old miners boots were being disposed of at Geev...

This is a lovely shop in Penzance which is definitely worth a look if you want to see beautiful and interesting art.  While much of it is inspired by Cornwall or made by artists based in Cornwall, you will find a wide range here.  They have a great website that is worth a look.   The gallery will feature specific artists and have exhibitions for them, but they also have a wide range of works by other artists on display at any one time.  It's definitely worth a browse and I enjoyed seeing works by local artists I am already familiar with, like Megan Gant, Sophie Carter and Craig Underhill.  I also enjoyed seeing work by Jim Moir as I follow him online and enjoy his bird inspired pieces very much, as well as the cutting humour of his computer art as Jim'll Paint It.  But then, humour is what he is most famous for. It is also really nice to have the opportunity to wander around a historic old building.  As a historic building, access is not the easi...

This exhibition closes on the 14th June 2026 I already visited this exhibition but realised that I had not given it as much time or focus as I would have liked.  I had done a lot that day and visited this exhibition before and after my timed visit to Beryl Cook.  I was also battling closing time.   I also start to get a bit frazzled dealing with lots of people.  It's partly about the noise splitting my focus, but I also have to move around people and it all just takes more concentration.  I find I don't take as much in while reading.  I don't make the same connections.   I must admit, I though it would be a relatively quick visit....  watch the two films I missed, have a quick look at things again and move on, but it didn't work out that way.  I lost several hours in there and I am glad I made the effort to go back, this exhibition deserved the thought. Sadia Pineda Hamsed's film Anak Where Did we Stay? was a film being shown in the...

This exhibition runs until the 31st October 2026 This exhibition left me with a mild feeling of irritation and grudging respect for Libita Sibunga.  The sort you might have for a Jehovah's Witness knocking on your door and wanting to convert you against your wishes.  Except in this case, it was very cleverly done, so cleverly I didn't realise.  It isn't even that I disagree, I have a huge amount of respect and time for spirituality.  It was the lack of choice in what was actually a very powerful exhibition. Let me back up a long way.  I reached the exhibition, stepped inside and grabbed a handy leaflet.  Spying a handy seat at the far end, I decided to make for that and read the leaflet.  Sue me, walking is tiring as is standing in an exhibition.  I always appreciate a good seat. So I read the leaflet and what really stood out was that the soundscape lasted for 59 minutes.  I like to do things thoroughly.  It is part of my nature and I e...

This exhibition runs until 4th July 2026 The picture gallery on the ground floor was home to this small exhibition highlighting work by four contemporary artists. Henrietta MacPhee's is a ceramicist and her display actually looked more like tiny little paintings.  Her ceramic miniatures each featured an everyday scene and it felt like her work was an interesting match for Caroline Walkers in this sense.  It was less gender focused but still a collection of small often un-noticed moments.  Each miniature was presented in a frame and required a close look to see all the tiny details. My favourite was a close encounter where a deer on a TV seems to gaze back at the small child standing inches from the TV gazing back.  For so many children these days, these are the closest encounters they will have with such animals. Bryony Fulton is a painter who delights in abstract geometry and colour.  I loved her paintings.  Apparently, she translates the designs on to can...

This exhibition runs until the 4th July 2026 The studio is a lovely bright room.  As you walk in, you are confronted by a huge expanse of windows with a view of the sea.  It is used for workshops and there are tables and chairs laid out.  I didn't at first realise there was an exhibition in there, I was taken in by the view.  It wasn't until I turned around that I realised. The wall opposite the windows was covered in glorious colourful shapes.  A little pop art, but this is pop art meets science.  Katie received stem cell treatment to successfully treat stage 4 blood cancer in 2022.  This only fuelled her fascination with cells, which had begun years before with diagrams in old science books. She reduced these cells to simple colourful shapes, but beyond this, she used them to visualise her own cells accepting and working with the introduced stem cells.  It would be interesting to hear more of how the colours and shapes reflect her own internal p...

This exhibition runs until the 31st October 2026. Art likes to make us think, to shift our perspectives and to do so it is often shocking or provocative.  Caroline Walker is a highly skilled painting and her pieces are beautiful but there is nothing shocking in her technique.  There are so many amazing painters out there.  And her paintings are quite lovely to look at, on the surface, not provocative.  Caroline has chosen to focus on something so familiar but often overlooked by art and taken for granted by society as a whole.  By giving her focus to it and devoting her considerable skills to it, she makes us look twice.  If it is such a large part of life, why is it not better represented in art?  It's well known that women are not as well represented in art, and where they are, it is often as beautiful objects rather than successful individuals.   I love the story of Louise Moerup and the statue of Venus in Copenhagen.  In walks and co...