19 artists selected for the Channel Islands Contemporary Art Show
ArtHouse Jersey & Art for Guernsey’s partnership exhibition celebrating the Channel Islands to open in January
18 January to 25 February 2024 at ArtHouse Jersey at Capital House
ArtHouse Jersey and Art for Guernsey are delighted to announce the names of 19 artists who have been selected to feature in their upcoming partnership exhibition, The Channel Islands Contemporary Art Show. This inaugural exhibition is drawn from an open call to Channel Islands and international artists earlier this year and is produced & curated by ArtHouse Jersey and Art for Guernsey, in association with Les Champs Libres in Rennes. The work will be showcased at ArtHouse Jersey at Capital House between 18 January and 25 February 2024 followed by a month-long exhibition at Art for Guernsey in St Peter Port opening March 2024. Five artists are from Guernsey, seven from Jersey and seven from other countries around the world, including Germany, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Moldova and Russia.
The artists include Aaron Yeadle (Guernsey), Charlie Buchanan (Guernsey), Jason Butler (Jersey), Connor Daly (Jersey), Notta Caflish (Switzerland), Tim LeBreuilly (Jersey), Paul Chambers (Guernsey), Philip Valenta (Germany), Sally Ede-Golightly (Guernsey), Emily de Gruchy (Jersey), Peter Mammes (South Africa / UK), Shan O'Donnell (Jersey), Vesna Parchet (UK) Hugh Rose (Guernsey), Eugen Gorean (Moldova), Martin Toft (Jersey), Leo Boyd (N. Ireland), Yulia Makeyeva (Jersey) & Oleg Mikhailov (Russia)
The Channel Islands Contemporary Art Show is a new project that takes as its ‘anchor point’ the inspiration experienced by the many artists who came to the Channel Islands to live, for refuge or for inspiration, particularly from the late 19th to mid 20th century. Reflecting on the present-day social realities of the Islands, the exhibition has been shaped through a spirit of dialogue, experiment and artistic rigour supported by the exhibition’s curatorial team across Guernsey, Jersey and Brittany, France. It aims to offer new perspectives on how the Islands relate both to their own pasts and to a wider global future. Featuring artworks from some of the Channel Islands’ most influential artists as well as a new generation who are looking, living and breathing the contemporary realities of these Islands from close-up and afar to create exquisite, moving and thought-provoking works that help us see both our shared histories and present realities in a vibrant and changing light.
Earlier this year Art for Guernsey and ArtHouse Jersey announced their intention to work together, joining forces to promote the Channel Islands - collaboratively to France and other jurisdictions.
The partnership came to fruition following a cultural diplomacy field trip to Rennes in June 2022 where the organisations engaged with galleries and museums, as well as the cultural services of the city, with the view of exploring artistic collaborations aimed at creating wider connections between the respective jurisdictions. Through this process, the two organisations identified a shared vision for how art can make concrete contributions to society, and in particular how it can connect communities, opening new and more positive dialogues across a wider range of topics. The Channel Islands Contemporary Art Show will be the first project of this nature. People should check back in on arthousejersey.je in the coming months to learn more about the exhibition.
Head of Programme for ArtHouse Jersey, James Tyson, said “The response to the open call for this inaugural Channel Islands Contemporary Art Show has been fantastic. Many artists from across the Islands and internationally submitted proposals that excited and challenged the selection panel. This has been a critical first step in bringing our two islands, the artists we work with as well as our diverse audiences closer together to appreciate the particular experiences and perspectives that can be more widely recognised as distinctly those of exceptional artists from the Channel Islands. Ours is an artistic scene that should also be known for its welcome and inspiration to artists from across the world. It’s wonderful that ArtHouse Jersey, Art for Guernsey and Les Champs Libres in Rennes could work together on this process which has built a foundation for further exchange and dialogue between our institutions.”
Founder and Chairman for Art for Guernsey, David Ummels, said “I am absolutely delighted that this project with our friends at ArtHouse Jersey and Les Champs Libres is coming to fruition. We met for the first time in June 2022, on a Cultural Diplomacy field trip to Rennes and felt immediately aligned in our conception of Art. It then became apparent how valuable working together to curate an art exhibition that could create a benchmark for better collaboration between the Channel Islands would be. More often than not, Guernsey and Jersey are perceived similarly by our neighbours, so we felt that promoting our Art and Culture together internationally would make a lot of sense. The list of local and international artists willing to be inspired by the Channel Islands for this project is incredibly impressive and we look forward to welcoming them and working with them, as artists and citizens of the world.“
