The Dangling Conversation
Patrick Lears
11 - 27 April
Patrick Lears' work has at it’s core an expansive sense of play and experimentation with variety and chance jumping in. Looking for the moment when something coheres but then opens, setting him off and away from usual decisions and directions.
Using material resources available to him - clay, wood, glass, paper, photographs and paint - Lears enjoy using leftover scraps or found materials to conjure new forms. Seeking some sort of visual harmony that feels to be just there, waiting to speak. Often there is loads of playful mess and sometimes a disheartening halt to action.
This is what helps Lears to evolve new meanings, new conversations, new combinations and unions. It feels (comically) like it takes courage to do this and face the practice every day - to carry on that never-finished conversation between what is and what could be.
Patrick Lears was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. He studied at Towson University, the Maryland Institute College of Art and Central St Martins, London. He lived and worked in London between 1999 to 2020 before moving to Margate in 2021. Lears regularly exhibits his work both nationally and internationally, including recent group exhibitions at The Terrace Gallery (London), Linden Hall Studios (Deal), Hastings Contemporary (Hastings), and The Lido Stores (Margate).
Lido Open 2024
Our fourth Lido Open is now live
The Lido Open is aimed at supporting artists in Ireland and the UK by showcasing the very best in contemporary art with a first prize of a solo presentation in 2025 to take place at The Lido Stores Gallery in Margate, Kent. All shortlisted work will be exhibited at The Lido Stores Gallery for three weeks, from 18 September to 5 October 2024.
Shortlisted artists and the prize winner will be selected by artist Vincent Hawkins and gallery owner Kristen Healy. The winner will be announced at a private view on Saturday 21 September 2024.
Submission Deadline 2 June 2024
Free to enter, £30 hanging fee for selected artists
Exhibition Programme
Spring 2024
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The Dangling Conversation
Patrick Lears
11 - 27 April 2024
Lears moved to Margate three years ago - the above conversations have taken centre stage at various times - for the artist the one with the weather and natural world has been significantly heightened.
Working mostly three dimensionally this exhibition emphasises and realises some of the recent, open-ended conversations Lears has been having.
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In the Garden of Magical Possibilities
Casper Scarth Deborah Burnstone Joseph Dilnot R&FMo
2-18 May 2024
A group show of four figurative painters. All use intuition to develop their work; all are storytellers. The stories in these artists’ paintings might be suggested, overt, mysterious and open-ended. The ways in which they arrive at their works are the result of drawing, intuition, pareidolia, a response to real-life events, memories, emotions or associations.
Curated by Deborah Burnstone.
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Sailing to Byzantium
Margaret Corcoran
22 May - 8 June 2024
A solo exhibition of paintings and drawings by prominent Irish artist Margaret Corcoran. The work explores the mythology of the sea and its crossover with poetry and societal rituals.
This exhibition is kindly sponsored by Culture Ireland.
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Shelter
Gareth Griffith/ Enzo Marra/Jenny Wiggins/Dylan Williams
13 - 29 June 2024
Shelter is a group show that explores different interpretations of the concept of shelter. The security it can offer, the safety it can provide, the home it can become. Each artist has responded via their experiences of the world, painted and sculpted reactions to a pertinent need and desire for somewhere that is their own.
Curated by Enzo Marra.
