Ella Clocksin, The Weight of Water, Birsay 1 (2026), watercolour & gouache, 29.7 x 41 cm
Ella Clocksin, The Weight of Water, Birsay 3 (2026), watercolour & gouache, 29.7 x 41 cm
Private View: Thursday 13 May, 6 - 8pm
Exhibition runs: Wednesday 12th May - Saturday 29 May 2027
Open: Monday - Saturday, 10am - 4pm
Sunday opening: 16 May 12 - 4pm (also final day of City Artweeks)
Getting here: South Parade is a one-way street with limited a few parking bays outside the gallery. Nearby side streets also have 2-hour parking bays, but demand is high. Alternatively, use Alexandra Courts Car Park off Middle Way (turn right off South Parade before you get to the gallery (5 min walk), or Summertown Car Park (10 min walk). Or catch a bus from the city centre (many buses run from Magdalen Street stop C1) to Summertown Shops on Banbury Road, or the Pear Tree Park & Ride (no. 300 to South Parade), or from Oxford Parkway Park & Ride (no. 2/2A to Summertown Shops).
About the exhibition
Research from Orkney in summer 2026 is at the heart of the Life/Forces exhibition. I was there for an artist residency at The Museum of Loss and Renewal in Birsay on the NW Mainland, watching the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea tip into each other around the Brough of Birsay island.
The show finds parallels between forces of nature in rock, water and storms, and persistent organic life forces in human and plant life after storms have passed.
I work in drawing, watercolour, and acrylic, making notations and responding to what I see, hear and experience in landscape and soundscape.
On Orkney, it’s the ancient Neolithic architecture, the more ancient rocky shorelines, and the attritions of rock and stone, churned and reshaped by the waves that drew me. And the buffeting of winds and weather, seabird cries and the sheer wall of sound coming from the sea, all shape the planes of paint, clouds of marks and illegible calligraphy in the resulting paintings.
The exhibition is supported by a grant from the Eaton Fund
