Jon Sarkin, The House We Live In, permanent marker on paper, 2012 (image courtesy of the artist)




William Utermohlen, Broken Figure, (mixed media) 1996 (Image copyright: Patricia Utermohlen, courtesy of Galerie Beckel Odille Boïcos)




Yuichi Ito & Yoshimasa Kato, White Lives on Speaker, film of a sculpture, 2007 (image courtesy of the artist)




JJ Ignatius Brennan, Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life: No 1, Pencil on Paper, 1993




Nicholas Wade, Back Propagation, digital image, 2012 (image courtesy of the artist)




John Adams, Igneous Rock

Exhibition open: 02.03.13 – 31.03.13

AXNS Collective present AFFECTING PERCEPTION: ART & NEUROSCIENCE
 
Funded by The Wellcome Trust and The Wates Foundation and supported by the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford.
 
Can brain damage spark creativity? What is the role of memory in art? Is it right to categorise people by their conditions? Which aspects of an artist’s skill are affected by dementia, and which ones are preserved? These are just some of the questions that Affecting Perception: Art & Neuroscience, investigates. 
 
Affecting Perception is a project with three strands: an exhibition, a seminar series and workshops in local schools.
 
The exhibition, held at O3 Gallery, showcases leading artists affected by conditions of the brain and inspired by recent discoveries in neuroscience. Examining these artists together for the first time, Affecting Perception looks at the connection between art and the mind.
 
The seminars series features high profile neuroscientists and the exhibiting artists discussing the themes of the exhibition. Speakers include Professor Charles Spence from The University of Oxford, exploring visual perception, and artist Jon Sarkin, discussing his experiences following a major stroke.  The seminars are open to all and free to attend. They will be held in venues across the city: Magdalen Road Studios, Modern Art Oxford and Fusion Arts. The workshops will be held in schools in Oxford and explore the themes of the exhibition. Click here (hyperlink to events page) for information on the Affecting Perception events.
 
The AXNS Collective is a group of young graduates interested in the crossover between art and science. With backgrounds in medicine, curating, production and community engagement, the organisers have come together to deliver their first project.

Download Press Release Here
 
See the exhibition page here

The Artists:
 
Jon Sarkin
Jon Sarkin is an artist who works in a wild variety of styles, from text-based stream-of-consciousness, portraiture, landscapes, still life, cartooning, collage, photography, poetry, music, and abstracts.   The removal of a section of the left hemisphere after a severe stroke left Sarkin, a friendly talkative chiropractor, a different person. He developed an overwhelming urge to draw and paint. Since this incident he has had a meteoric artistic career, and will be speaking as part of the project about his experiences. His work has been featured in The Daily Telegraph, BBC TV and Radio, The New Yorker, and his life rights have been purchased by Paramount Pictures.
 
“Beforehand, I knew who I was, more or less. But after this I didn’t – and I still don’t, not fully. Say you have a curve that gets closer and closer to another line without ever meeting it. It’s a logarithm. That’s me. My sense of self is logarithmic.” – Jon Sarkin
 
Mervyn Peake
Peake was an accomplished artist, poet, novelist and playwright. He is the author of the Gormenghast novels, and illustrated Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark and Alice in Wonderland. He is thought to have suffered from rare form of dementia known as Dementia with Lewy Bodies. Remarkably, his drawing abilities remained relatively preserved until his death, although his skill varied from piece to piece, perhaps reflecting the lapses in attention and awareness that he suffered as a result of the dementia.
 
Jon Adams
Jon Adams is a contemporary artist whose work explores themes of hidden disability in Asperger’s and dyslexia. His art often reveals his naturally systematic thinking: his inclination and ability to uncover systems within everyday interactions and landscapes. He is currently engaged in a collaborative research project with Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre, at the University of Cambridge. In this residency Jon Adams sets out on a personal, artistic and scientific investigation of his own Asperger's Syndrome.
 
Ignatius Brennan
JJ Ignatius Brennan, renowned for his surrealist paintings, began his artistic career as a boy by painting the migraine experiences, which would plague him for the rest of his life. He experienced loss of vision, hallucinations of zigzags and triangles, and the visual field splitting into a mosaic. Faces, objects and parts of his body would appear deformed, grossly enlarged, or duplicated, and he sometimes experienced total loss of 3D vision. The works featured in Affecting Perception are heavily informed by his experience of migraine, showing not only the visual hallucinations but expressing the sensations that accompany the attacks. Brennan won first prize in the fourth National Migraine Art competition in 1992, and the second prize in the 1992 “Migraine Images” competition, organized by the Migraine Trust and Glaxo Pharmaceuticals.
 
Cecil Riley
Born in 1917 in Cornwall, artist Cecil Riley started painting when he was 10 years old and went on to train at the Slade School of Art. He has had a successful and is still working today. Later in life he developed macular degeneration, giving him large patches of blindness in his visual field. His brain began to fill in these empty spaces with strange shapes and figures: he had developed ‘Charles Bonnet Syndrome’, a condition that causes patients with visual loss to have complex hallucinations, most commonly of faces or cartoons. Despite the deep anxiety they caused, Riley developed an interest in his hallucinations and began to paint what he saw. He claims that painting them has a cathartic effect that reduces the frequency of his visions.
 
Stephen Wiltshire
Stephen Wiltshire is an artist who draws and paints detailed cityscapes. He has a particular talent for drawing lifelike, accurate representations of cities, sometimes after having only observed them once. Aged three, he was diagnosed as autistic. He had no language and lived entirely in his own world; it soon became apparent he communicated with the world through drawing. Some of his most remarkable achievements include the production of his longest ever panoramic memory drawing of Tokyo on a 32.8-foot-long (10.0 m) canvas. He completed it within seven days of a helicopter ride over the city. He trained at the City and Guilds of London Art School and has since achieved a meteoric success. Wiltshire was recently awarded an MBE for services to the art world.
 
Jason Padgett
Jason Padgett is a number theorist and artists with Acquired Savant Syndrome. One night he was attacked by muggers who kicked him in the head repeatedly. After mild concussion Padgett began to notice a change: he saw complex mathematical formulas everywhere he looked and became obsessed with turning them into intricate diagrams. Interestingly, Padgett has no formal training in mathematics, or even a university degree. A brain scan, by a research team in Finland, showed areas of damage were forcing other areas of his brain to compensate.
 
“I see bits and pieces of the Pythagorean theorem everywhere. Every single little curve, every single spiral, every tree is part of that equation.”
 
William Utermohlen
William Utermohlen was born in Philadelphia in 1933, graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1957 and continued his studies at the Ruskin school of art in Oxford. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1995 and began to paint a series of self-portraits, trying to understand what was happening to his mind. These works are some of the most fascinating examples of the changes inflicted on the production of art by dementia. Within the paintings there is also the expression of the fear following his diagnosis; they are a moving insight into the process of his mental decline.

Yoshimasa Kato & Yuichi Ito
Kato and Ito are two young Japanese artists interested in art science crossovers. Included in the exhibition is a film of their sculpture, White Lives On Speaker. It a sculpture made through sound, generating an interactive exploration of the viewer’s brain waves. An EEG recording of alpha and beta waves generated from a spectator’s brain are converted to sound waves and played through a speaker covered in potato starch. The starch, when stationary, is liquid, but when stimulated by sound takes on a form, movement and a life of its own, separating from the main pool on the speaker.

Nicholas Wade
Nicholas Wade is a British psychologist and academic. He is an emeritus professor in the psychology department of the University of Dundee in Scotland. Wade has published widely on perception and vision and has collaborated with artists such as Patrick Hughes and Calum Colvin. His research interests include the representation of space and motion in human vision and the relationship between visual science and visual art.  One of his aims is to foster a closer association between the graphical language of art and the interpretative language of science.

Date: 31.01.13 – 24.02.13

Exhibition open: 01.12.12 – 27.01.13

This exhibition features new work by wire sculptor Rachel Ducker and printmaker Rachel Owen that focuses on the capture of a single instant; a freeze-frame of a fleeting moment in time. Rachel Ducker presents her dynamic wire figures as if frozen in the midst of energetic movement, while screen-printer Rachel Owen captures transient moments in her photographic images of people and places from around the world.

Read more here

Exhibition open: 14.11.12 – 25.11.12

In 1982 Helen House opened in East Oxford as the world's first children's hospice.  This year we are celebrating our 30th anniversary and the flagship event to mark this is our photo exhibition: 'We are Thirty'. The exhibition will document life at Helen House and our young adults' hospice Douglas House, by featuring 30 children and young adults who use the hospice houses, as well as families who have used the hospice in the past.  You will also have the chance to learn about what is really like at Helen & Douglas House, through the stories of the families taking part in this exhibition.

image: Jack Pixton and mum by Kate Raworth.

Read more here

www.helenanddouglas.org.uk/30.

Exhibition open: 13.10.12 – 11.11.12

Jane Strother will bring 'ordinary' landscapes to the fore in paintings of attentively observed orchids, cowslips and other natural wonders. The exhibition will challenge the viewer's sense of what constitutes an 'ordinary landscape', as Strother re-evaluates the term 'ordinary'. She uses it as a call to arms, a way of demanding that habitats which are slipping into obscurity should be abundant and commonplace.
 
Strother's detailed draftsmanship registers a desire to accurately preserve, with the carefully inscribed text recalling the collector or explorer's notebook. This almost academic quality is reinforced by the tissue of quotations that run throughout her paintings, anchoring her observations in words. By contrast, her abstract strokes capture the grander, less tangible emotions she experiences when observing flora in their natural habitats. These cannot be captured in text and must be figured through the vibrancy of her colour palette and in her confidently delicate brushwork. The balance between her documentary style and abstract qualities creates ethereal, but rooted, paintings where concrete line drawings are echoed by ghostly shadows of colour.

To see more about this exhibition click here

Read the press release here

Exhibition open: 06.09.12 – 07.10.12

The O3 Gallery is delighted to announce that we will play host to local artist Christopher Townsend in a forthcoming exhibition of striking contemporary sculpture. In this exhibition Townsend will showcase works that capture the energy of nature in lines and forms that will cut and curve their way through the gallery. The viewer's movement around the unique, circular O3 Gallery space will inform their understanding of the sculpture, as they view it from different and potentially unexpected angles.

Interested in line, form and balance in both life and art Townsend works mainly with mild steel, stainless steel, found metal objects, stone and wood. Tai chi and kick boxing helps Townsend with the understanding of balance of the human form, and aiding his concentration whilst enabling him to work with vigour in a physical sense.

Read the press release here

For more information on the exhibition click here

Exhibition open: 09.08.12 – 02.09.12

O3 Gallery is proud to present the work of local artist Jane Hope, whose exquisite paintings capture the beauty of the everyday. In this exhibition Hope will showcase a series of work that pays careful attention to her surroundings, with her compositions featuring everything from the Oxford streets where she cycles, to her home-grown vegetables. Using trees, brick walls and grasses as a lens through which she observes colours, shapes and shadows, Hope creates gently magnificent landscapes. Her colour palette is dictated by the seasons, time of day and mood of her subject. Ranging from vibrant orange leaves, to the muted green of willow trees, the colours of Hope’s work are subtly shifting, whilst always retaining a commitment to her surroundings. She uses different media to respond to the demands of a particular scene and enjoys experiencing the diverse effects they create. When working in oil Hope sometimes uses a palette knife to form ‘strong clear shapes’, but also turns to pastel drawing to produce ‘lacy and delicate patterns’, creating a variety of works.

To Read more and see more of Jane's work click here

To read the press release click here

Exhibition open: 07.07.12 – 05.08.12

To coincide with the 150th anniversary of the first telling of Lewis Carroll's magical tale, the O3 Gallery presents an exhibition which explores our continuing fascination with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Understanding art as capable of transporting us into a Wonderland realm of dreams and imagination, and placing the artist in Alice's shoes as our guide, this exhibition will feature the work of a selection of international contemporary women artists. Opening on Alice's Day, Wonderland will present a range of paintings, photographs, drawings and installations in an immersive group exhibition, accompanied by a number of events click here for details.

Read the Wonderland press release here

Read more abou the exhibition here

Image: Tea Party in the Ship of Fools by Adriana Peliano

Exhibition open: 02.06.12 – 01.07.12

This exhibition of contemporary fine art jewellery looks to explore and stretch the notions of how or what it is to 'don' Oxford. Contributing artists have been selected for their collectively broad approach to jewellery making and will undoubtedly reflect, interpret and respond to this theme in varied and surprising ways.
 
Contributing artists:
 
Farrah Al Dujaili, Karen Bartlett, Emily Bullock, Rachael Colley, Sally Collins, Sian Haigh-Brown, Lucy Harvey, Fiona Hermse, Heidi Hinder, Tamsin Leighton-Boyce, Yi Lu, Mikaela Lyons, Toni Mayner, Kathryn Partington, Jo Pond, Fliss Quick, Katherine Richmond, Miriam Rowe, Natalie Smith, Shadi Vossough, Li-Chu Wu
 
For more information visit the exhibition blog
Click here to download the Press Release

To Read more and see more click here

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Exhibition open: 05.05.12 - 27.02.12

Oxford Pride of Place Project by the Caravan Gallery

Artists Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale have been busy touring the nooks and crannies of Oxford taking photographs that capture the idiosyncrasies of the city as its residents see it. This new series of photographic work will be on show in O3 Gallery and present a fresh take on the city and streets that are home to some of tourisms most recognizable UK landmarks. Williams and Teasdale have created the outline of A People's Map of Oxford, greeting visitors to O3 Gallery members of the public are invited to make their mark on this large-scale map, that will transform into a refreshingly honest and insightful 'locals' version of your average Tourist Map.

Oxford Castle Quarter and O3 Gallery are thrilled to welcome the world famous Caravan Gallery itself (Fashion Designer Paul Smith is a big fan and recently shipped the artists, caravan and all, out to Paul Smith SPACE, Tokyo!) to Castle Street Square between Monday 30th April until Saturday 12th May, when its doors will be open and the artists will be present inviting people into the gallery/caravan to view images taken on Caravan Gallery travels and exhibitions across the UK. There visitors will be invited to participate in The Caravan Gallery Oxford Survey, all of which will ultimately form an online resource presenting a true reflection of the city and an alternative to the Photoshop'd picture perfect city of Dreaming Spires we are all so used to seeing on racks in newspaper shops!

The Caravan Gallery will also be conducting talks and workshops in various venues in O3 Gallery and across the city including activities as part of Here and Now, a photographic exhibition of everyday Oxford taken by city residents that will be exhibited in The Gallery at the Old Fire Station (an exhibition in association with Arts at the Old Fire Station, Crisis Skylight and Oxfordshire Artweeks).

Click here to download the Press Release

Click here to Download the Information Flyer

 

O3Gallery Manager Helen Statham talks to BBC Radio Oxford about the Caravan Gallery's Oxford Pride of Place Project.

Part 1 Click Here
Part 2 Click Here

Ceramics by Mary Moser Prize Winner, Crabby Taylor

Oxfordshire Artweeks are delighted to announce that Oxfordshire artist Crabby Taylor is the winner of the 2011 Mary Moser prize, an award established in 2003 to mark the work of a local artist who has taken up art as a second career later in life.
 
Esther Browning, Executive Director for Artweeks, says "Crabby makes wonderful ceramic pieces in simple circular shapes including standing and open forms and tactile pebbles using various clays to give texture and colour. These are then fired at 1000°C in an old metal dustbin before being smothered in smouldering sawdust for several days. Crabby wears gauntlets, goggles and a respirator as protection from the heat and smoke and it is a laborious and often frustrating process: for every piece that reaches completion, six have fallen by the wayside from thermal shock!"

Exhibition open: 31.03.12 – 29.04.12

The mixed-media group show will feature sculpture, painting and photography from 10 leading UK artists that have been specially commissioned by the London 2012 premier sponsor BT as part of the forthcoming Cultural Olympiad programme. The participating artists represent some of the UK's most exciting artistic talent.
 
Working with Team GB's foremost Olympic and Paralympic athletes, the BT Art of Sport initiative will produce a body of work that will serve to re-tell the story of the London 2012 Olympics, capturing the dedication and commitment of these elite athletes and conveying the drama and passion of these historic sporting events.
Image: Art of Sport © Jeremy Houghton

Read more here

Exhibition open: 23.03.12 – 24.03.12

O3 Callery and Punishment Cells in Castle Gardens, Oxford Castle Quarter

4pm to 9pm (performances 4pm, 5pm, 6pm, 9pm)
FREE

Drawing from the mundanity of prison life, the chores that prisoners were forced to carry out, and the idea that time weighs heavy when one is deprived of freedom, Digital Prisoners present a thought-provoking, interactive installation within the O3 Gallery and the atmospherically loaded Punishment Cells in Castle Gardens.  The project is part of a Dancin' Oxford scheme to foster new collaborations between dance artists and creative technologists.

The installations will be available to explore on Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th March from 4pm to 9pm  with performances taking place at 4pm, 5pm, 6pm and 9pm.  Visitors will also be able to watch the spectacular UK premier of Compagnie Retouramont's 'Danse des Cariatides' performance, which will take place in Castle Street Square at 7.30pm on both evenings.

Please enter O3 Gallery via the entrance in Castle Gardens.

Commissioned by Dancin' Oxford, with production support from Film Oxford. More information visit www.dancinoxford.co.uk

Read more here

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Exhibition open: 24.02.12 – 18.03.12

The undulating hills of Oxfordshire's countryside, Oxford city's familiar architectural grandeur and some of the South East's gritty post-industrial cityscapes of are evoked in the smokey forms and bitten lines of Caroline Maas' enigmatic prints. Inspired by and drawn from locations personally significant to the artist, this exhibition presents a powerful body of work from one of Oxfordshire's finest contemporary printmakers.
 
I love to walk and look down over vast expanses. I wait for the landscape to arrange itself in some significant way then I draw that. I aim for an equivalence and intensification rather than representation… Mostly I start from drawing an observed scene; but I think that it's also good to start from the process and play, and see what you get.
(Caroline Maas)
 
Working from original drawings and being influenced by her background in watercolour, Maas creates her etchings by layering colours onto different plates and embracing the element of chance that this presents whilst exploring the possibilities of the medium.
 
The printmaking process condenses the original idea. I like the bitten line, and putting different colours onto different plates… I like layers, layers of time, of experience, of colour…. I like the element of chance, the happy accidents.
(Caroline Maas)
 
Caroline Maas began studying painting in 1982 at Oxford College of Further Education before moving to Richmond Adult College and discovering printmaking with Ingrid Allen at Shaftesbury Centre. She is a member of Oxford Art Society, Oxford Printmakers Collective and West Oxfordshire Arts.

Listen To Caroline Maas Interview and Read more about Caroline

Exhibition open: 14.01.12 – 19.02.12

The O3 Gallery presents an exciting 4 week exhibition by art teachers from across the County. The chosen artwork which spans across creative disciplines has been submitted by all types of educators from university lecturers to primary school teachers.

To view full details and image gallery click here

Exhibition open: 26.11.11 - 08.01.11

Flora McLachlan’s pictures are records of things seen and imagined by twilight or moonglow. She is inspired by medieval poetry and powerful, strange images from fairy tales and myths.
 
“I try to express a sense of the enchantment I feel is embedded in our ancient landscape. I imagine the secret face of the land, when the light fades and the creatures come out to roam.

To view full details and image gallery click here

Exhibition open: 15.10.11 - 13.11.11

Pin-hole photographer Mary Foulkes presents a series of work which highlights Oxford Castle’s most secret and unexplored corners.

To view full details and image gallery click here

O3 Gallery
Saturday 1st – Sunday 9th October 2011
Open: Weekdays 12-5pm, Weekends 11am-4pm.

In the week leading up to Oxford Castle’s site-wide Big Draw event, which will take place on Saturday 8th October, the O3 Gallery will offer its walls to budding draughts-people across the county! Everyone is welcome to take part and either bring a drawing that they have created already, or use the materials provided in the gallery throughout the week to make their drawing on the spot and hang it straight on the wall! The result will be a great display of drawings from participants of all ages and abilities, celebrating the medium’s powerful universal language of shape and form. As The Big Draw theme for 2011 is ‘The Drawing Age’, participants are encouraged to think of this when creating their drawings. This is an exciting opportunity to think about the role drawing plays in our lives today. Why is drawing still important to us in 2011, and how do we make use of it? At the end of the exhibition one drawing will be chosen by O3 Gallery to be framed and added to the prestigious Oxford Castle Art Collection.
 
*Please do not submit framed work to this exhibition. All drawings will be attached to the gallery hanging system using bulldog clips.
** Please note that we cannot guarantee the return of any drawings submitted in this open exhibition. The drawings will be available to collect on Sunday 9th October between the hours of 11am and 4pm.

To view full details and image gallery click here

Exhibition open: 27.08.11 - 25.09.11

An exhibition of artwork created by four students who took part in the Porthleven Art Studio Residency in June 2011, as well as work by professional artists local to Porthleven, presented in association with the Customs House Gallery.

To view full details and image gallery click here

Exhibition open: 23.07.11 - 21.08.11

To celebrate its 5th birthday the O3 Gallery welcomes back a selection of artists who have exhibited in the space over the last 5 years.

To view full details and image gallery click here

Exhibition open: 04.06.11 - 17.07.11

Horti-CULTURE is for garden-lovers everywhere! It is an exhibition which examines our human relationship with nature and explores the images, experiences and visual languages that emerge from the act of cultivating a garden. Highlights include original ink drawings by Sarah Simblet, a human-sized nest sculpture by Emma Kwan and an installation by Lisa Busby which will turn part of the lower gallery into a living garden!

To view full details and image gallery click here

Exhibition open: 07.05.11 - 29.05.11

Artweeks at the O3 Gallery: Mary Moser Prize Winner - Wendy Newhofer.
Outdoor sculpture by Christopher Townsend and Andrew Thompson presented by the Turrill Sculpture Garden

and a showcase of work by Oxfordshire students.

Wendy Newhofer makes expressive glass pieces that have a painterly quality to them. A combination of glass and metal in the form of precious leaf and wire enables Wendy to draw within the glass and create a palette of subtle colours when the glass is fired. There is a magical alchemy to this process which can be unpredictable but gives each piece its individual character.

The Turrill Sculpture Garden will present a series of artwork within the Oxford Castle Garden, featuring local sculptors including Christopher Townsend and Andrew Thompson.

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition open: 26.03.11 - 24.04.11

Exploring the DIY artistry of self-releasing musicians
Editions of You celebrates and showcases self-publishing and self-releasing musicians and the handmade editions and releases they create. Taking the form of an exhibition, zine fair, live music events, talks and happenings, Editions of You at the O3 Gallery and Oxford Castle seeks to unearth the underground culture of DIY artistry that combines music with artwork...

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition open: 19.02.11 - 20.03.11

The O3 Gallery is delighted to be working with Oxford Fashion Week 2011 to showcase a series of photographs taken by various photographers during Oxford Fashion Week 2010. The images illustrate the pure excitement of the runway shows; from both a central and backstage perspective. The collection plays host to a variety of photographers, from young talents to well established artists. Their photographs capture the drama of the lighting, the thrill of the clothes and the splendour of the makeup. The contrast of the glamorous modern compositions with the historic interior of the O3 Gallery is a unique experience. The exhibition is set to be striking and memorable..

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition open: 15.01.11 - 13.02.11

An exhibition of dynamic new views of Oxfords most celebrated building, the Radcliffe Camera. By Emma Dougherty is a UK based artist and animator who works with a range of materials including clay, found objects, stamps and digital art. Emma’s prevailing fascination is with the Radcliffe Camera, Oxford, and portraying it in new and quirky ways. and Tim Steward who lives and works in Oxford and is trained in classical drawing at Lavender Hill Studios in London...

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition open: 27.11.10 - 09.01.11

A Cotswold Scene displays the winning entries and runners up of an exciting photography competition launched to celebrate the Cotswolds. The competition is the idea of local landscape photographer Sarah Howard, supported by the Cotswolds Conservation Board and Blueprint Imaging of Witney. Sarah, who established Image Seen last year to offer one to one and group workshops in the area, has lived in the Cotswolds for much of her life and has a particular affinity with the region. She is especially keen to promote its photographic potential; “Photography has seen a surge in popularity recently and with spring approaching there’s no better time than now to get out there with your camera, make use of its wonderful creative potential, and engage with our lovely surroundings”, April 2010......

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition open: 23.10.10 – 21.11.10

In October, printmaker Rachel Owen and sculptor Rachel Ducker join forces at the O3 Gallery with the exhibition ‘Metamorphosis’. The exhibition loosely explores the idea of transformation, in terms of the natural and supernatural, the real and imagined, from idea to object or image and from present events to memory or souvenir......

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition open: 18.09.10 – 17.10.10

Textile artist Amanda Hislop will present a series of artwork at the O3 Gallery, Oxford Castle from Saturday 18th September until Sunday 17th October. In this collection, Amanda responds to the timeless themes of land, sea, sky and trees. The images created do not reveal the landscape directly but are a response to what it feels like to be within the landscape; an impressionistic sense of the place, a moment of time, a response to light and colour.....

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition open: 14.08.10 - 12.09.10

Working from photographs, Rona uses a monochromatic palate of oil on canvas to create stylised images of figures often bathed in ghostly hues of pinks, purples and blues. The exhibition showcases a body of work entitled Recapturing a Certain Youth alongside Rona’s most famous and highly controversial Bullingdon Painting......

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition open: 10.07.10 - 08.08.10

Following the success of our Winter 2009 show, members of the Oxfordshire Printmakers Cooperative have been invited to show work again in the O3 Gallery this summer. O3 IMPRINT displays works by a selection of Oxfordshire printmakers, using various techniques.....

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition open: 05.06.10 - 04.07.10

Sharona Katan exhibits her new collection of work entitled Stilleven. The work is inspired by the Flemish still life - 'stilleven' -from the 17th century, but uses photographic emulsion, exaggerated scale, and artificially coloured monochrome images to produce a 'cheap' modern take on the original Flemish displays of transient wealth.....

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition open: 01.05.10 - 30.05.10

Artweeks at the Castle.

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition open: 20.03.10 - 25.04.10

Following the success of Endnotes: Unwrapping Books, the curatorial team Metron have been invited back to the O3 to create another exciting exhibition of responses to books. To coincide with the Year of Science, Oxford University Press have kindly donated an interesting selection of journals, textbooks and literature all themed around Science for use by the participating artists.....

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition opened: 20.02.10 - 14.03.10

Having studied at Henley College and Central St. Martins, Oxfordshire painter Bee Bartlett has continued developing her skills and exhibited widely since 2002, also participating in Oxfordshire Artweeks every year since then. She has also shown work with the Oxford Art Society and at Woodstock Art Festival....

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition opened: 16.01.10 - 14.02.10

As a completely self-taught artist Vicky stared taking photos whilst travelling Australia back in 2003. Her love of the land and sea blossomed and after graduating in 2006 with a 2:1 in Graphic Design and Illustration and she combines the great outdoors with taking beautiful images mainly of landscapes and seascapes. This exhibition will feature a series of works created on her travels in Iceland....

To view full details and image gallery click here

by Various Artists
exhibition opened: 28.11.09 - 10.01.10

Oxford Printmakers was set up in 1976 when a group of artists, many of whom were Ruskin School of Drawing leavers, felt the need to create facilities for continuing their work as there were none in the area. The group features many well known Oxfordshire printmakers and this show forms part of a much larger programme of exhibitions organised by the cooperative. ...

To view full details and image gallery click here

by Ali Cockrean
exhibition opened: 24.10.09 - 22.11.09

Ali Cockrean is a successful expressionist painter who regularly exhibits her abstract work throughout the country. Her work already appears in collections across Europe, the US and Canada. Her career has been boosted by significant commissions and a rising national profile following the success of shows in London and regional galleries, with enthusiastic reactions to her recent collections Beyond the Verbal and Space in Mind. Ali has also featured on BBC TV, made several appearances on radio and had magazine/newspaper coverage...

To view full details and image gallery click here

by Joe Bowes
exhibition opens: 19.09.09 - 18.10.09

Having been given an old Yashica camera by his granddad as a young teenager, Joe Bowes developed a great love and interest in photography. Education, however, led him in a different direction and Bowes studied Engineering before embarking on a successful career in the plastics sector and eventually setting up his own plastics engineering business. As his company grew and became established he found more time to return to his first passion – photography. Travel around various parts of the British Isles has enlivened his enthusiasm for the medium once more and he has, in recent years, started to share his work and experiences with others.

To view full details and image gallery click here

exhibition opens: 02.09.09 - 13.09.09

Artists & Illustrators is the best-selling magazine for professional artists and aspiring amateurs. For more than 20 years, the magazine has provided inspiration and practical advice to its readers. Artists & Illustrators’ annual search for their Artist of the Year is one of the most prestigious open art competitions in the UK and we are pleased to announce it will be brought to you in association with the O3 Gallery...

To view full details and image gallery click here

by Jesse Alexander
exhibition opens: 15.08.09 - 30.08.09

For millenia, and throughout every culture, the subterranean has been a setting for mythologies and folklore, with a prince of the underworld keeping guard in almost every known religion. Although caves and the the underground are culturally known for where beasts reside and where bad things can happen, they have also functioned as sites of initiation as well as provided shelter and sanctuary....

To view full details and image gallery click here

by Tim Richardson
exhibition opens: 11.07.09 - 26.07.09

Tim Richardson has always been a practitioner in the arts. From an early age drawing on every available surface this eventually led to art college. Following a design based course his interests took him to London working for a landscape architectural practise and later graphics studios. With many disciplines learnt and contracts completed, the interest in colour led Richardson, in 2003, to hold his first solo exhibition of 30 paste paintings. Since then he has not stopped producing work to commission and holding two major shows a year.

The O3 gallery will be showing a selection of Richardson’s most recent work during the second half of July...

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by Various Artists
exhibition opened: 02.05.09 - 31.05.09

The O3 Gallery in Oxford welcomes an exhibition of stunning photographic images by local landscape and travel photographer Sarah Howard.
Following on from Sarah’s highly successful solo exhibition at the Mill Arts Centre in Banbury late last year, “In My View”, a month long show, previews at the Oxford Castle complex on June 6th and is set to inspire fellow photographers, artists and lovers of the landscape.
Since developing her interest in photography whilst traveling overseas, it has become an ever strengthening passion for Sarah who now devotes much of her time to creating her inspirational and evocative images. ....

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by Various Artists
exhibition opened: 02.05.09 - 31.05.09

A collaboration between the O3 Gallery, Oxford Artweeks and The Oxford Wine Company. A display of selected entries to the Artweeks Art Wine Competition including the overall winner.
Artists have been asked to design a wine label for a new premium, full-bodied red wine from an estate in the Languedoc region of France. Selected entries will be on show and available to purchase throughout Oxford Artweeks....

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Curated by Diane Jones-Parry and Annabel Ralphs (Metron)
exhibition opened: 28.03.09 - 26.04.09

Endnotes: Celebrating Books and Libraries. Curated by Diane Jones-Parry and Annabel Ralphs (Metron). Books which have reached the end of their shelf life were kindly donated by the Central Oxford Library. They were randomly selected with an emphasis on variety. Pairs of books with contrasting content were wrapped and selected unseen by the participating artists. Each artist was invited to respond to their books in any way they chose with an awareness of the possibilities offered by the O3 exhibition space. The responses have been extraordinary and imaginative; a varied and exciting interpretation of literature through other art forms. Featuring Painting, Sculpture, Animation, Film, Sound and movement performances...

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by Chris Perrett
exhibition opened: 21.02.09 - 22.03.09

Opened on Saturday 21st February, Escape is an exhibition of beautiful natural landscapes by South Oxfordshire artist Chris Perrett. Featuring abstract and semi-abstract works, the exhibition will introduce Perret’s style to a wider Oxfordshire audience. Perret studied at Wimbledon School of Art in London and frequently spends much of his time painting in Dorset...

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by Melissa Sturgeon
exhibition opened: 17.01.09 - 15.02.09

After developing a love of painting buildings and street scenes as a student of Falmouth School of Art Melissa Sturgeon has continued to represent this theme in her work. FAÇADE is her first major solo exhibition and features scenes of doorways and atmospheric street corners, capturing figures and architecture together in a splendid display of colour and detail...

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by Helen Pakeman
exhibition opened: 28.11.08 - 11.01.09

The O3 Gallery would like to welcome Helen Pakeman to exhibit her series of evocative portraits this holiday season. We have named the exhibition Eye to Eye since Pakeman’s drawings focus on striking portrayals of unknown faces, often women and children, who engage with the viewer through direct eye contact.

Originally from a retail background with franchises in The Body Shop, Helen Pakeman turned her back on business and started to train in Fine Art. She gained a degree in Drawing from Bath University in 2006 and has worked as an artist since, with group exhibitions in Swindon, Bath and Oxford Artweeks.

She also works as an illustrator for the Charity ‘Wells for India’ on a voluntary basis and is hoping to visit projects in Rajasthan in January/February 2009...

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by Kieran Stiles
exhibition opened: 25.10.08 - 23.11.08

This Autumn the O3 Gallery will present a selection of works by landscape painter Kieran Stiles to coincide with Oxford Castle’s Earth From The Air exhibition of photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.

Kieran has exhibited in various galleries in London and Oxford and this exhibition follows the recent success of shows in Oxford’s Said Gallery and The Stables Gallery. Please join us to view brand new work by this talented painter...

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by Roddy McColl
exhibition opened: 20.09.08 - 19.10.08

The O3 Gallery is proud to present a series of stunning photographic images by Oxfordshire photographer Roddy McColl. The exhibition entitled Port Meadow: A Year in Photographs captures the many changes seen in this beautiful setting across a year. A selection of the images presented in this show have been exhibited at the Cherwell Boathouse earlier in 2008 and were described as "...moodily atmospheric..." by the Sunday Telegraph.

'Port Meadow is an incredibly exciting place for a photographer; the broad open space heightens appreciation of the subtle changes in landscape, not only through the seasons, but on a daily basis and in a way unrecognised by the city. Many landscape photographers make a special effort to exclude any sign of human activity, purely focusing on the 'unspoilt' beauty of a scene...

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by Various Artists
exhibition opened: 16.08.08 - 14.09.08

Selected local artists will show work on the theme of 'Alternative Oxford'. This open competition gave artists the chance to submit artwork that contributes to the idea of opening up unseen areas of Oxford, or is an innovative take on a traditional view. The twenty selected participants showing work in the exhibition live in the county and each artist has been asked to submit just one piece of work each. Every exhibit has it’s own unique story to tell and accompanying literature will add insight to the visual clues. We hope this exhibition will be a striking view of the city through the eyes of our artistic community. Selected work includes a wide range of media. Abstract paintings are juxtaposed with documentary photographs...

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by Stephen Gray
exhibition opened: 16.07.08 - 10.08.08

Treescapes & Skylines: An exhibition of Stephen Gray's current expressive series of ink and watercolour paintings, exploring the countryside and waterways where he lives in Oxfordshire. Stephen studied at the West Sussex College of Design and has a background in graphic design and illustration, working for design consultancies and advertising agencies in the UK and overseas. His paintings reflect aspects of his training and experience, showing a keen eye for graphic content, surface texture and detail, all tied to a strong use of colour. "The starting point with my painting, from the conceptual process through to the finished work, is influenced by location and the medium I'm using. This Treescape series is largely influenced by being out in the country...

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by Susan Bonham
exhibition opened: 07.06.08 - 06.07.08

Serendipity: Artist and Photographer Susan Bonham displays her recent collection of Contemporary Abstract Photographic prints in the O3 Gallery. These form part of a larger series of contemporary abstract composite images that were inspired by her long-term fascination with texture and colour found in the built environment. The images are a natural progression from the large abstract canvasses Bonham has painted previously, drawing on grid structures. Bonham is particularly interested in the relationships that are formed between the individual 'cells' within a grid and how these elements affect a whole composition.

Oxford Born Susan Bonham moved to Reading where she obtained an honours degree in Fine Art and Education...

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Various Artists
exhibition opened: 01.05.08 - 01.06.08

Across the month of May Oxfordshire displays its artistic talent in the visual arts realm through Artweeks, Oxfordshire’s annual festival featuring special exhibitions and open studios. The O3 Gallery will once again be hosting a special taster exhibition of selected works by participating Artweeks artists, featuring an accessible and diverse selection of work in a range of media.

Over 60 Artweeks artists submitted a piece for the exhibition, for reasons of space we have had to narrow that down to just over 20...

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Various Artists
exhibition opened: 29.03.08 - 23.04.08

The O3 Gallery welcomes several talented Oxfordshire children’s illustrators, including Korky Paul and Joanna Walsh, to display their current bodies of work. Coinciding with the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival and Oxford’s first Fringe Festival, this exhibition celebrates the crossing of boundaries between art and literature. The show will also feature a selection of works by local artists working with Books as their central theme, including photographic and sculptural pieces...

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by Lynette Kay
exhibition opened: 16.02.08 - 16.03.08

The O3 gallery welcomes abstract artist Lynette Kay. The Earth, Soul, Music exhibition will display her rich and textured canvasses for the first time in central Oxford...

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by Wilbur Heynes
exhibition opened: 12.01.08 - 10.02.08

Heynes returns to the O3 Gallery this January with a new body of work entitled 'Shine'. The collection includes new steel sculptures and a photographic series of refracted water abstractions.

Wilbur Heynes has evolved a natural abstract style that flows through all the branches of his work. The development of this technique presents each piece reduced to its purest element. Never seeking to dictate interpretation, every item engages the active imagination of the viewer to create a flexible and dynamic relationship.

Having read Classics at Nottingham University and studied portraiture in Italy before Fine Art at Guildhall, Heynes then worked as an assistant to the sculptor Hal Wilson, based in rural France...

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by Christine O'Sullivan
exhibition opened: 24.11.07 - 23.12.07

The O3 welcomes Banbury artist Christine O'Sullivan to display 'City Limits', a collection of bold canvasses combining strong colours and lines, inspired by the architectural urban landscapes of New York City. Her work takes pure abstraction into the world around us as she delights us with her vibrant use of colour and stimulates us with simplification of form. Working in series, the elements that make up an urban landscape - grid street patterns, road markings, neon colours, all find their way into her paintings. These elements abstracted result in a discordant mix of form and colour that resonate with the feel of the city...

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by Marc Allen
exhibition opened: 13.10.07 - 11.11.07

Lights Plays: Freeing Light From Fixed Form Meanings. An Exhibition of Contemporary Fine Art Photography by Oxfordshire artist Marc Allen.

'Light Plays' are the results of Marc Allen's photographic explorations and artistic research into removing light from fixed form meanings. Through his art, Allen aims to question how the viewer perceives and feels emotional responses to light. The word photography means drawing with light and LIGHT PLAYS gives meaning to drawing with light in the fullest sense. With no knowledge of what the final image will look like before the photograph is taken, Marc's serendipitous process, does not evoke an original object but creates an image of texture and colour...

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by Claire Wiltsher
exhibition opened: 08.09.07 - 07.10.07

Journeys: A few years ago Claire Wiltsher decided to embark on a personal adventure. She left her job, sold her house, packed her bags and started a series of journeys, personal travels to various corners of the world. Along her way she started a collection of sketches, notes and photos, along with the other paraphernalia that travelers accumulate. On returning home a rich catalogue of ephemera provided the ideas for something more stable and lasting...

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The Elegance, Power and Free Spirit of the Horse
exhibition opened: 04.08.07 - 02.09.07

The O3 Gallery is pleased to introduce a long awaited exhibition of three artists of considerable repute. The theme of this exhibition is the horse - a familiar part of the scenery in rural Oxfordshire. The exhibition will demonstrate the ability of our three artists to evoke the elegance, power and free spirit of horses and other animals. Our painters, Barrie Linklater and Neil Cawthorne have both been consistent award winners in the society of Equestrian Artists exhibition which is held annually in the Mall Galleries in London. Our Sculptor is Lorne McKean whose reputation relates to equestrian studies, both natural and sporting, as well as other subjects drawn from life and portraiture, including members of The Royal Family...

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by Peter Lavery
exhibition opened: 16.06.07 - 22.07.07

For the past twenty years Peter Lavery’s camera studies have been recording the ebb and flow of plant and animal life in the gardens, fields, and greenhouse at Brandiers Farm, his home in Wiltshire. His flower photographs - studies of moments of life and death - go beyond the ‘captured moment’ of traditional picture taking. By means of innovative camera work, these poetic floral portraits take photography to exciting new heights and may be said to encroach on the once exclusive territory of painting.

In rich, dramatic images that enhance our awareness of the world around us, Lavery’s pure forms demonstrate the abiding relationship between art and nature. A white penstemon, dew-spattered, at the pinnacle of floral perfection; rose petals, faded and fallen, the blooms in poignant decline; a lily, its once showy throat shriveling and limp...

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Various Artists
exhibition opened: 12.05.07 - 10.06.07

This group exhibition coincides with Oxfordshire's annual Artweeks festival, which features special exhibitions and open studios. Artweeks at o3 celebrates the dynamism of the festival by highlighting a diverse selection of work in a range of media. The exhibition aims to expose the breadth of artistic endeavour in the county, and as a result, features a colourful and accessible collection of artwork...

by Karen Purple
exhibition opened: 14.04.07 - 06.05.07

From April 14th The O3 Gallery will be presenting between here and there, a collection of new paintings on winter, weather and light by Oxfordshire artist Karen Purple. This body of work responds to the artist’s environment, with images being found and created while walking in the local landscape, where Purple observes the effect of weather and light, noticing the minute details around her. During these walks the artist fills notebooks with words and images, using as her materials found pigment or soil, river water or muddy puddles...

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Vanitas and The Seven Challenges of the Cnyht Bachelor by Justin Neal
exhibition opened: 12.05.07 - 10.06.07

Vanitas & The Seven Challenges of the Cnyht Bachelor; a series of photographs by Justin Neal which compare medieval values with those of contemporary society...

by Mark Thompson
exhibition opened: 03.02.07 - 11.03.07

Breaking Silence is collection of works on paper that Mark Thompson has made in response to the landscapes of the extreme North. The artist has travelled extensively in Iceland, Scandinavia and Alaska, exploring the territory that informs his work, often in extreme weather conditions. On the periphery of what is known geographically, Thompson hopes to reach the horizons of human memory and experience, in order to record these encounters on paper afterwards. "The work is, in a sense, an excavation of these experiences", Thompson says. "Watching a storm building as I descend a glacier, knowing it will be a matter of minutes before I am drenched to the skin; tracing the paths of rivers across tundra and exploring long forgotten buildings, feeling my boots punching through frozen crusts of snow...

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by Cambridge Jones
exhibition opened: 13.10.07 - 11.11.07

The RADA Centenary Portraits: a veritable ‘who’s who’ of British acting from stage and screen, captured by award winning photographer Cambridge Jones.

Since taking his first ‘celebrity portrait’ only two years ago, Cambridge Jones has quickly built up a respected reputation for photographing the rich and famous. From Prime Ministers to pop stars, Jones’ subjects cannot help but be striking, but his powerful images of them show us these well-known figures in a new light. For The RADA Centenary Portraits, which have been previously exhibited at The Getty Gallery, London and The National Theatre, Southbank, London. Cambridge Jones presents portraits of the great and good from British stage and screen, allowing his feel for dramatic and iconic images really to come into its own...

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by James Vinciguerra
exhibition opened: 11.11.06 - 03.12.06

A dynamic collection of colourful and lively prints and drawings by James Vinciguerra will be showing at the O3 Gallery this November. Vinciguerra's work, which features architectural landscapes of Oxford, Cornwall and London, amongst other locations, is created using a combination of traditional and new techniques. His process is initiated by drawing his subject in a variety of mediums, This could include mono-printing, studies in charcoal or colour pencil and collage. Viciguerra then scans the desired image into a computer and paints it digitally using the mouse as a tool in the same way that he might use a pencil or bruch, literally drawing with the mouse. The resulting painting is a luminous merging of hand drawn and digital paint...

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by Alison Lilley Berrett
exhibition opened: 06.10.06 - 05.11.06

A solo exhibition of abstract painting and drawings by Oxfordshire based artist Alison Lilley Berrett will be showing at The 03 Gallery in October… Working mainly with oil paints, pastels and charcoal, Nuneham Courteney based Berrett also uses photographs and drawings as preparatory tools for working on site. Her inspiration comes essentially from nature and is the result of a passion for colours, shapes, and patterns, found in the natural world. Her practice has been characterised by studies of landscapes; “I am captivated by the drama and magnificence of places like Dartmoor and the coast. The sea in its many moods has had a profound effect upon my work” and Berrett has been known to place herself in the most extreme weather conditions in order to capture the power of the wind and rain...

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by Wilbur Heynes
exhibition opened: 02.09.06 - 01.10.06

O3 Gallery presents a solo exhibition in steel and photograhy by Faringdon based artist Wilbur Heynes, showing for the first time in Oxford. From a background of classical training based on the figure, Heynes has evolved a naturally abstract style that flows through all the different areas he explores in his work. Through the development of his technique of working and reworking form until he can present each piece reduced to what he considers its purest element - his steel sculptures, whilst clearly figurative, are nonetheless abstracted. Likewise his large photographic prints are both of iconcic landscapes and of abstracted microcosms of them. Never seeking to dictate interpretation, every item engages the active imagination of the viewer to create a flexible and dynamic relationship between the real and imagined...

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by Belinda Durrant
exhibition opened: 05.07.06 - 30.07.06

Sculptural pieces and works on paper by Belinda Durrant examining the trappings of femininity, and desirability. A new exhibition at The O3 Gallery presents an intriguing collection of sculptural pieces and works on paper by Belinda Durrant. These works examine the trappings of femininity and question the conceived relationship between body shape and desirability. Durrant’s current line of inquiry has led her to study the constrictive qualities of corsetry, and the part it has played in the historical variation of the ‘ideal’ female shape. The corset has not only changed the size of the waist, but also moved it up and down to meet fashion’s demands...

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by Jude Wall
exhibition opened: 13.05.06 - 02.07.06

An exhibition of photographs that chart the extraordinary changes that have taken place in order to convert Oxford Prison and Castle into a brand new heritage and leisure quarter will form the inaugural exhibition at the new 03 Gallery, right in the heart of Oxford Castle.

Throughout the transition and re-forming of the ancient site into a vibrant modern destination and hotel Jude Wall was commissioned by Oxford Castle Ltd. to document the process of change, whilst reflecting with an artist's eye upon this. The resulting exhibition and publication is as much about aesthetics as it is about architecture. Within the images reside the memories or traces of an era long gone - a place of unimaginable hardship and cruelty, replaced now with smart restaurants and immaculately preserved heritage...

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