Throughout the year our cultural pages are awash with local creatives pushing artistic boundaries with art, projects and events that bring colour and vibrancy to our Island community and increasingly have an impact internationally.
It’s natural to focus on the art or project itself, but you may have noticed that a new name keeps cropping up in connection with many of these initiatives.
ArtHouse Jersey works behind the scenes to nurture our artistic community, providing them with a platform to flourish. Formerly known as the Jersey Arts Trust, it supports artists from Jersey and across the world to create ambitious work that has a positive impact on our island and engages international audiences.
ArtHouse Jersey’s work spans from large scale public events such as Skipton Open Studios, which had nearly eighteen thousand attendees this year, to small experimental projects such as ‘Sound of Colour’, where a composer and filmmaker responded to Jason Butler’s newest exhibition.
They have commissioned a series of artworks including a new play, ‘Jackie the Baboon’, created by some of the team behind West-End hit ‘War Horse’, which will be staged in 2019, and a new symphony, ‘Two Brothers’, by local composer Charles Mauleverer, which formed a central part of the Island’s official commemorations of the Armistice.
They host international artists all year round, and award funds to deserving local artists to create and develop new work. In doing so they’ve amassed an impressive alumni who have benefitted from their support, including filmmaker Michael Pearce, recently nominated for 10 British Independent Film Awards following the release of his film ‘Beast’, and photographer Martin Toft, who was a winner in the Portrait of Britain 2018 exhibition.
Expect to hear a lot more about ArtHouse Jersey in 2019. They’ve got big public projects planned, exciting commissions in the pipeline and a raft of interesting artist residencies coming up. You might not have known about their work before, but that’s set to change.
