Phoenix Art Space is home to more than 100 studios and artists, and this exhibition features the work of 85 of them. It functions as a snapshot, a moment in time in the flow of our history and our future. What you will find is a joyous display of human creativity, encompassing painting, sculpture, film, photography, textiles, writing, ceramics, and everything in between.

Beyond the Studio is the keystone in a year of celebrations to mark the 30 years since the organisation became a charity in 1995, with a mission to support artists and present art to public audiences.

The exhibition title recognises that, while the studio is the starting point for each artist and maker, community is also built in the stairwells and corridors, where creativity is nurtured by chance meetings and conversations. It recognises that what artists imagine and create in their individual studios reaches the world through exhibitions, screenings, community outreach and engagement, teaching, and much more.

At its heart, this exhibition becomes, like our annual open studios event, a site where multiple voices and ideas converge in one place over a period of time. These are also gathered through a publication accompanying the exhibition, where all participating artists have contributed 100-word personal histories of their time at Phoenix.

If the exhibition is the present and the 100-word histories connect the past to the present, what might the future hold?

Like the mythical bird reflected in its name, Phoenix Art Space has risen anew many times in its 30-year history. Three decades of freedom and constraint, ambition, hope and imagination.  It retains at its core a mission to nurture artistic talent and, going forward, to ensure that a diverse range of voices is present across all that we do.

Beyond the Studio is the third in a series of exhibitions for 2026 curated under the theme of Future Histories. This theme encourages us to explore how the past continues to inform, configure, and sometimes overshadow the present. It also asks us to understand that we are not bystanders in the flow of history and compels us to consider how our actions today will shape the history of tomorrow.

We are not only living with and reflecting on history but also writing it.

Laurence Hill, Curator

This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of John Varah (1959 – 2026), who, with others, brought this organisation into being. His tenacity, vitality and creative ingenuity exemplify the spirit of Phoenix.

He is much missed.

Please join us for the preview on 10 July, 6 – 8pm. Speeches at 7 with BSL interpretation by Dr Sue MacLaine

Photography by Hugh Fox.