Press release 12th January 2024
Announcing Oxfordshire Artweeks 2024: Over 1000 artists to open their studios & showcase their art in 400 venues across Oxfordshire this May
Oxfordshire Artweeks, the UK’s oldest and biggest open studios and pop-up exhibition event, returns to Oxfordshire this year for three weeks in May (4th-27th) to showcase the art of up to 2000 artists, including more than 200 who are new to the festival for 2024. These range from world-class painters, photographers, ceramicists, jewellers and sculptors to talented and enthusiastic members of a variety of community groups working in many media.
As Oxfordshire’s creatives open their doors and offer a warm welcome, visitors are invited to explore art and craft, for free, in four hundred studios, galleries, homes and gardens, historic town halls, potteries and churches, and other fascinating venues across the county. These include the grounds of Broughton Castle near Banbury, the University of Oxford’s Rhodes House, three Oxford colleges, The Bibliographical Press in the Old Bodleian Library, the National Trust Heritage and Rural Skills Centre in the Cotswold village of Coleshill and the Westgate shopping centre.
Artists, makers and designers working with oils, clay, textiles, wood, metal, glass and mosaic will be showcasing their creative talent, explaining their materials and, often, demonstrating their methods. Visitors will be able to see, touch and talk about hundreds of thousands of pieces of art and craft, and uncover the stories of their inspiration. Choose to meet a milliner, follow a furniture-maker’s creative process or talk sport ahead of Paris 2024 with an Olympian Artist, one of only six worldwide. Be intrigued by imaginative, experimental and abstract art: discover exhibitions and installations that challenge the perception of Oxford as a bastion of privilege or be wowed by the generative art created through computer coding and a cool robot called Stephen.
The pieces on show celebrate iconic Oxford architecture and local landscapes, and also promise visitors a global tour from Northern Europe and Mediterranean seas to the Americas, Asia, Australia and the Arctic with art inspired by the people, patterns and colours of destinations around the world. The wonders of the natural world have inspired dozens of artists to paint and sculpt birds, beasts, and blooms whilst others have taken flights of fancy into their imaginations and memories and others have been inspired by environmental issues and sustainability as Artweeks runs into its 42nd edition.
Elsewhere, visitors can discover exquisite papercuts, five-minute portraits, locally-created pigments and art inspired by poetry. Expect the unexpected as traditional boats, handmade bellows, Victorian rocking-horses, Japanese Ikebana and contemporary concrete creations make an appearance. So much to see!
Each week is different:
NORTH & WEST OXFORDSHIRE 4 – 12 MAY
OXFORD CITY 11 – 19 MAY
SOUTH OXFORDSHIRE 18 – 27 MAY
The Artweeks festival is Oxfordshire’s largest visual arts festival and the UK’s oldest and biggest artist open studios and pop-up exhibitions event. In May each year, this three-week not-for-profit celebration of the county’s artistic and creative talent encompasses the visual arts in their broadest sense. Around 2000 artists, makers and designers open the doors to their homes and studios or take part in pop-up exhibitions and welcome the public to see their creations and watch them work – over 100,000 people visit Artweeks exhibitions each year, a million pounds of art changes hands, and tens of thousands of pounds are generated for a whole host of charities.
