future exhibition | Seaside Surrealism | 10 October 2025 - 31 January 2026
opening Thursday 9 October 6-8pm
open Thurs - Sat 2-6pm through October 2025
by appointment November & December 2025
open Thurs - Sat 2-6pm 15-31 January 2026
Bobinska Brownlee is delighted to present Seaside Surrealism, featuring works by Annie Attridge, Jake Clark, Matthew Dowell, Rae Hicks, Adam King, Sharon Kivland, D J Roberts, Cyrus Shroff and Paul Westcombe, its starting point Paul Nash’s stay in Swanage, Dorset in the 1930s.
Nash spent time in Swanage with Elieen Agar in the 1930s, and was struck by its ‘surrealism’.
The cliffs, sea, stones and fossils fascinated him, ‘it’s just a surrealist dream… it has a strange fascination, like all things which combine beauty, ugliness and the power to disquiet’.
Images: Andy Keate
The town’s ‘surrealism’ was further heightened by a strange collection of Victorian architectural salvage brought from London to Swanage by George Burt and John Mowlem – 15th century windows, 17th century statues, a faceless 1850s clock tower, London bollards and street lamps, cannon balls from war.
The artists in the exhibition have been invited to respond to this surrealism, across painting, drawing, ceramics, print, sculpture and installation.
Exhibition design: Cyrus Shroff
Private view: Thursday 9th October 2025 6-8pm