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Art


BAAM 2025 is here
Support in the creative economy
Zeroh & Hell Yeah present
Bottle Alley Art Market 2025
Saturday 23rd August 2025 10am - 6pm
A free public event showcasing fine art from curated local and national artists.
Mel Elliott
Aug 95 min read


Design-Nation South: Materialised
This not-to-be-missed exhibition opens at 11am Wednesday 15 October, until Sunday 26 October, at The Regency Town House,13 Brunswick Square, Brighton BN3 1EH.
Opening hours: 11am-5pm every day except Sunday 26, when the exhibition will close at 4pm.
Mel Elliott
Aug 72 min read


New Prayers - Old Religions
Words by Gareth Stevens Portrait by Piers Golden Artworks by Richard Butchins I meet with Richard Butchins in his windowless studio along...
Gareth Stevens
Aug 65 min read


Blank Canvas to Breakthrough: IMO's Artistic Journey in Hastings
Two years ago, Ibi Meier-Oruitemeka (Studio IMO) was not a painter. In fact, she had never really considered it as an option. But on the morning of her birthday in May 2023, she woke up with the inexplicable urge to buy some paint. She followed that feeling, and since then, painting has become not just an artistic pursuit but a radical shift in the way she sees herself.
George Mingozzi-Marsh
Jun 124 min read


If you go down to the woods today...
Beccy McCray will be no stranger to those working in Hastings and St Leonards’ art scene, local environmental activism, or simply out and about around the place. Keen-eyed Get Hastings readers may even remember her from Louise Coulthard’s 2023 piece on allotments. Working across multiple disciplines, blending visual storytelling with the natural world and social themes, her disparate interests coalesce into a wild creative practice that sees Beccy grace this issue’s cover sho
Jon Everall
May 218 min read


Artist Takeover: Molly Hawkins Transforms Introduced
Molly Hawkins, an award-winning designer, artist, and muralist known for her vibrant murals and playful public artworks, has announced a special artistic takeover this Spring. From April 8th to 13th, the Introduced pop-up space will be completely transformed into Molly’s creative world, filled with collages, shapes, and patterns that spark joy and positivity.
Jo Orriss
Mar 201 min read


Exhibition: Michelle Roberts - Red, Blue, Up
Red, Blue, Up is a major new exhibition of paintings and drawings by Bexhill-based artist, Michelle Roberts. It features a wide selection of Roberts’ works from the last 15 years. Through this detailed yet joyful execution, her works are underpinned by her unwavering precision and control, as she dissects shapes, forms and patterns across canvas and paper.
Mel Elliott
Mar 41 min read


Ornagh: Much More Than Digital Tinsel
Now, if I wrote down RX to the good people of Hastings, they might very well think-ah yes, the fishing boats, and their Rye registration. But what if we flipped those letters around and it was XR? The Winter edition’s seasonal cover was by tech-artist Ornagh Lynch, convert and champion of all things Extended Reality.
Jon Everall
Feb 76 min read


Afri-Co-Lab
As my lemon and ginger tea cools on the table beside me and my interviewees get situated, I look around the space. I’d never been inside Afri-Co-Lab before, and it’s so much more than I’d imagined.
Grace Latter
Nov 25, 20246 min read


From Island to Island
A conversation with Richard Mark Rawlins about community on the coast.
As I make the short walk from my house to the home and studio of Richard Mark Rawlins, I am struck by the vibrant creativity that fills our small seaside town.
George Mingozzi-Marsh
Jul 1, 20244 min read


Laetitia Yhap: 50 Year Painting Hastings
At one of the most prestigious buildings on the South Coast is the work of one of the South Coast’s most prestigious painters. In the first floor gallery of the De La Warr Pavilion, Hastings resident and acclaimed British painter, Laetitia Yhap’s exhibition entitled ‘An Ending to a Beginning’, features intricate paintings of fishermen on The Stade Beach in Hastings Old Town.
Mel Elliott
Apr 16, 20242 min read


Project Artworks
Project Art Works, an inclusive rights-based art organisation in our hometown supports people who have complex support needs in a way that not only helps give them a platform of communication they feel comfortable with, but turns the table on societal norms and is striving to change the generalisation and assumptions around people often invisible from public life.
Sophie Harper
Nov 30, 20238 min read


Ben Fenton: on Painting and Mental Health
Ben Fenton is a Hastings-based artist, known for his abstract paintings of local architecture and coastline landscapes. In this interview, Ben opens up about his long-term mental health struggles, his relationship with the area and the sea — and of course, his art.
Mel Elliott
Nov 13, 20238 min read


Steph Warren: Surviving Banksy
Born and bred Hastonian, Steph Warren is one of the United Kingdom’s leading authorities on the graffiti and street art movement, having worked with both Banksy and Ben Eine back in the noughties as a young woman at the forefront of a very male-orientated and secretive world. Owner of Stella Dore Art Gallery (previously based in East London, now in St Leonards). I caught up with the gallerist, curator, art and mural facilitator
Kathy Foley
Oct 5, 20234 min read


On the Couch with Sue Tilley
When you think of the word ‘muse’, several people come to mind: a mid-nineties rock band, obviously Kate Moss in all her forms, the Pre Raphaelite poser, Elizabeth Sidall and last but not least, St Leonard’s based Freudian nudie, Sue Tilley.
Mel Elliott
Oct 3, 20235 min read


Black People Don't Knit: Lorna Hamilton-Brown MBE
There was absolutely no mistaking Lorna Hamilton-Brown for anyone else when I saw her enter Eggtooth’s The Nest at The Old Town Hall for our interview this May. Dressed from head to toe in colourfully printed sports luxe with a matching bucket hat and luminous trainers, donning her trademark Black Girl Magic earrings, she looked every part the craft maverick I’d heard so much about.
Sophie Harper
Jul 26, 20238 min read


Flash Bang Waller What a Picture: An interview with street photographer JJ Waller
An interview with street photographer JJ Waller.
Mel Elliott
Apr 22, 20238 min read


Peter Quinnell, Illustrator
Peter Quinnell is a popular and successful illustrator, working for 25 years, primarily with collage. You will have seen his instantly recognisable work whilst out and about in Hastings but also in countless magazines and advertising. He works from Black Winkle Studio opposite the fisherman’s huts where he prides himself on being “Experienced, fast and inexpensive. No job too large or too small”.
Mel Elliott
Sep 10, 20154 min read


Deborah Bowness: Artist, print designer and wallpaper maker
Deborah Bowness grew up near York, and attended Leeds College of Art before embarking on a Constructed Textiles MA at The Royal College of Art. She now resides and works in St Leonards, designing iconic wallpapers that are shipped all over the world. Mel sat with Deborah and had a very ‘Northern’ chat about processes, inspirations and claims to fame.
Mel Elliott
Jun 3, 20153 min read
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