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Wednesday 11am - 5pm Thursday 11am - 5pm Friday 11am - 5pm Saturday 11am - 5pm Sunday 11am - 5pm

Hastings Contemporary

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Hastings Contemporary

We are an art gallery in Hastings Old Town, open Wednesday to Sunday, 11am-5pm. Under 18s go free. Hastings Contemporary champions modern and contemporary art.
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An ambitious programme of temporary exhibitions includes work by important Modern British artists, internationally celebrated artists, and emerging practitioners. Since opening (as Jerwood Gallery) nine years ago, the gallery has developed a reputation for its focus on painting and on Modern British art. The gallery sits among Hastings’s famous net huts, overlooking the largest beach-launched fish

ing fleet in Europe. Designed by HAT Projects, the building has won several architectural awards, including a RIBA National Award, a Civic Trust Award and a Sussex Heritage Trust Award, and reached the mid list for the Stirling Prize.

18/03/2026

Check out the Mobile Studio at Robsack Wood Primary Academy 🌟

Last week we took the Mobile Studio for its first off-site excursion, hosting a pop-up exhibition.

Over three days, 400 children (ages 3–11) visited the space to spend time with original artworks. For many, this was their first experience of seeing art up close.

Alongside the exhibition, we ran a series of hands-on activities - learning how to read exhibition labels, spot different materials, and sketch their own responses.

Two Art Ambassadors from Year 6 helped us install the exhibition, learning about how artworks are curated and installed.

After school, it was lovely to welcome 40 families to the Mobile Studio and to share free family tickets to our exhibitions.

Thank you so much to the teachers and team at Robsack Wood for welcoming us! 🌟 We look forward to seeing you at the gallery soon.

The Mobile Studio is funded by Projects and Partnerships Funding from the UK Government.

Pearls of the Sea 2025/26 is supported by The Magdalen and Lasher Charity, Chalk Cliff Trust, Isabel Blackman Foundation and our Pearls of the Sea Patron, Amanda Burton.

📸 Clare Hughes photography

16/03/2026

New exhibitions coming soon! 🛠️

The gallery, shop and coquina are now closed for exhibition changeover.

We will reopen on Saturday 28 March with our new exhibition, The Open: Odyssey 🌟

📸 .baker

15/03/2026

Final day to visit ⏳💫

MICHAEL LANDY
LOOK

Michael Landy may be best known for his large installations and participatory works, but this exhibition shines a light on his draughtsmanship, revealing a quieter and more intimate consideration of the world around him.

Visitors will encounter a group of intensely personal drawings relating to Landy’s experience of testicular cancer and his father’s tunnelling accident.

These works are accompanied by a new self-portrait made for this exhibition (pictured here), and Landy’s Nourishment etchings that render overlooked city weeds as icons of survival and endurance.

Visit today 💫 Last entry 4.30pm.

Image: Michael Landy, Self portrait at the age of 62, 2025. © Michael Landy. Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo: Todd-White Art Photography.

14/03/2026

Farewell Sardines! ❤️‍🩹

Sardines the rat lady is cruising through the galleries in her 1975 MG Roadster.

Dreamed up by artist Isabel Rock, she is one of a cast of tough, hybrid creatures who have survived climate collapse and inherited the ruins of human civilisation.

Your final day to meet Sardines is Sunday 15 March, when the exhibition closes. But you have been warned - Sardines breaks hearts wherever she goes ❤️‍🩹

ISABEL ROCK
Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold
Closes Sunday 15 March

This exhibition is the outcome of the Evelyn Williams Drawing Award 2023, which Isabel won for her drawing, Our Cell. Delivered in collaboration with Drawing Projects UK and the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize.

Photos: Jorge Antony Stride

13/03/2026

tonight! friday 13th 💫 test your luck with tarot, tattoos and more 💫

🎟 last few tickets available on our website, and a limited number on the door

🎶 .band will be live in the foreshore gallery from 8.20pm

🖋 sign up for tattoos from 7pm in the studio. choose your flash and pay direct to the tattoo artists

🐌 is on her way and will be roaming the galleries as Slug!

🍸 cocktails and tapas .hastings

see you later 💫💫💫

12/03/2026

🌷 Mother's Day at Hastings Contemporary 🌷

Spend Mother's Day with us and soak up the final weekend of our current exhibitions by Sophie Barber (seen here), Isabel Rock, Maggie Scott and Michael Landy.

🥂 Enjoy the special Mother's Day menu upstairs at .hastings with a free glass of cava with every meal.

🛍 Pick up a treat in our shop - choose from a range of local and independently made homeware, ceramics, jewellery, books and limited edition prints.

We are open Wednesday to Sunday, 11am-5pm. Members and under 18s go free. Hastings and Rother residents go half price from £5.

Images:
Sophie Barber, The Year Your Born, 2025. Courtesy of Alison Jacques. Photo Michael Brzezinksi
Photos Euan Baker and Madeleine Gammon.

11/03/2026

Final weekend to visit!⏳⏳⏳

Here artist Sophie Barber joined by Baby Rudy, discusses her experimental painting practice and the making of her show at Hastings Contemporary.

From the studio floor to the kitchen table, Sophie layers, stretches, stuffs, stitches and walks over her canvases - creating bold, irregular surfaces where nothing is wasted.

Visit this weekend before it closes! 💫

SOPHIE BARBER
Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, never long wet, never long dry
Closes 15 March 2026

Watch the full film on our website.
Film by Tom Thistlethwaite

07/03/2026

Last chance to see! 🌟

MAGGIE SCOTT: Five Times More
Closes Sunday 15 March 2026
Sussex Spotlight / Free entry

Discover the work of Hastings-based artist Maggie Scott and her textile series, Five Times More.

Maggie Scott’s work is shaped by lived experience: as a Black British woman, an activist, and as a mother.

This series, Five Times More, centres on the relationship between mother and child, drawing together personal reflections on motherhood and shared histories of pregnancy, childbirth and care.

Scott combines tapestry with digital imagery, transferring photographs onto silk before introducing colour through nuno felting – a process in which fine merino fibres are pushed directly into the fabric.

While birth is a universal human experience, it is not an equal one. Research shows that Black women in the UK are five times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than white women – a statistic that gives the exhibition its title and underscores its urgency.

Visit for free before the exhibition closes on Sunday 15 March.

Sussex Spotlight is a new series hosted in our public galleries, celebrating the vibrant creativity of local artists and the rich cultural landscape of our region. Supported by David and Sarah Kowitz.

Image: 1. Maggie Scott, Five Times More (detail), 2021. 2. Maggie Scott, Five Times, 2021. Photo John Cole.

06/03/2026

Just one week left! ⏰🐕

SOPHIE BARBER
Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, never long wet, never long dry
Closes Sunday 15 March 2026

See the bold and experimental paintings of Sophie Barber in her hometown of Hastings.

These ‘pillow paintings’ or ‘cushion canvases' are plump three dimensional works filled with studio detritus, like masking tape, sweet wrappers and shoe covers. In fact, Sophie's studio has no rubbish bin - everything ends up in the back of her paintings.

Characteristic of her practice, these works mix humour and popular culture with folklore and the surreal, playing with the possibilities of scale, reference and materiality.

Visit the show before it closes, and take home the brand new accompanying monograph.

Images: Sophie Barber: Lucky charm, Lucky Mustard, and Melting away, 2025. Photo

05/03/2026

New kids club! 🐟 HERRING 🐟 is our new after school art club for 8-12 year olds.

🐟 HERRING – Thursdays for 8-12 year olds

Starting in April for a 5 week block, artist Molly Burrows will lead playful sessions exploring expressive mark-making, clay, collage and wax resist. Children will create hybrid sea creatures, ‘future artefacts’ on clay tiles, and experiment with abstraction through collage.

🎨 BRILL - Wednesdays for 5-7 year olds

This term children will create experimental self-portraits, colourful coral reefs, and explore patterns inspired by fish scales and seed printing, led by artist Sara Melin.

🎟️ Book your place on our website
https://www.hastingscontemporary.org/event-category/children/

Get in touch with any questions.

03/03/2026

Last chance to LOOK 👀

Closing soon:

MICHAEL LANDY
LOOK
at Hastings Contemporary
Closes Sunday 15 March

Discover Michael Landy’s drawing practice, and it's importance throughout his life and career.

LOOK brings together a group of deeply personal drawings that, through intense focus and observation, shine a light on things that have been abandoned, lost or overlooked.

Visit before the show closes on Sunday 15 March.

We are open Wednesday to Sunday, 11am-5pm. Members and under 18s visit our exhibitions for free.

Lead supporters: Thomas Dane Gallery and The Garcia Family Foundation. With additional support from Ivor Braka Ltd and those who wish to remain anonymous.

Watch the full film on our website.
🎥 Film by Tom Thistlethwaite

Address

Rock-a-Nore Road
Hastings
TN343DW

Opening Hours

Wednesday	11am - 5pm
Thursday	11am - 5pm
Friday	11am - 5pm
Saturday	11am - 5pm
Sunday	11am - 5pm

Telephone

01424 728377

Website

http://www.hastingscontemporary.org/

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Our Story

Hastings Contemporary, formerly Jerwood Gallery, is a new independent gallery for contemporary and modern art, on sea. Set right on the beach of Hastings Old Town, Hastings Contemporary will explore all forms of modern and contemporary art, as well as continuing to champion the medium of painting, for which it has built a strong reputation.

The gallery opened to the public on 17 March 2012 and welcomes more than 40,000 paying visitors each year. Previous exhibitions have showcased artists including Jake & Dinos Chapman, Marcus Harvey, Rose Wylie, Gillian Ayres, William Scott, Jeffery Camp, Basil Beattie, Ansel Krut, Chantal Joffe, Mark Wallinger, Maggie Hambling, Sarah Lucas, Sebastian Horsely, Julian Simmons and Rachel Howard.

Hastings Contemporary is a registered charity and every penny we make goes towards our running costs. The support from our visitors, Members, Patrons and Donors helps enable the gallery to deliver our artistic programme and to continue and develop our learning and participation programme which engages over 2,000 children and young people from Hastings and the surrounding area every year.