Our Contemporary Visual Arts Programme runs two major exhibitions a year, in Summer and Autumn, and an Emerging Artist Residency focusing on socially engaged practice in the Winter months. Find out What's On, learn more about our recent exhibitions or discover what we have in store here.
We are delighted to share our 2024 Visual Arts programme. The first exhibition of the year will be by Scottish-Barbadian artist Alberta Whittle, running June - August 2024. This will be followed by an exhibition by Irish cross-media artist Oisín Byrne, opening in August 2024. Both exhibitions continue to expand the ways in which the Contemporary Visual Art programme at Mount Stuart invigorates and responds to the historic house and grounds.
Find out more.
Upcoming Exhibitions
Alberta Whittle: Under the skin of the ocean, the thing urges us up wild
1 June - 25 August 2024
We are delighted to announce that our summer exhibition for 2024 will be by Scottish-Barbadian artist, Alberta Whittle. Alberta will present site specific works, inspired by the history and landscapes of Mount Stuart, Bute and the Clyde, in an immersive installation that considers ideas connected to ancestral roots, trade routes, routes of power, and roots of empire.
Find out more here.
Oisín Byrne
31 August - 20 October 2024
This summer, Mount Stuart will introduce Oisín Byrne - an Irish cross-media artist - for their first exhibition in Scotland. The starting point for Byrne’s project will be one of the less well-known collections at Mount Stuart house: its Gaelic and Irish books and pamphlets.
Find out more here.
Dylan Esposito: Emerging Artist Residency
Our Emerging Artist in Residence for 2023, Dylan Esposito, has been developing his work with the local autistic and neurodivergent community. Focusing on the experience of place through touch, he has been learning more about other people’s sensory experiences while sharing his own practice with them. Dylan's work will be unveiled in early 2024.
Find out more here.
Past Exhibitions
Sekai Machache: Svikiro
2 September - 29 October 2023
Sekai Machache's a project entitled Svikiro, comprised of several short films, shot and displayed throughout Mount Stuart. Through performance to camera, still and moving image, and visual and embodied research at Mount Stuart and in its collections and archives the resulting films suggest alternative readings of the past and present a model for a decolonised future archive built on collaboration.
To find out more about Sekai's project you can read our press release here.
Monster Chetwynd: Moths
10 June - 20 August 2023
Monster Chetwynd is known for tackling urgent global issues through a celebratory approach with exuberant and fun performative pieces. Featuring handmade costumes, props and sets, Chetwynd creates joyful outfits and mise-en-scène that often cross the boundaries onto gallery walls.
During her residency at Mount Stuart, Monster worked with local school children on a performance based project that focuses on moths: a species she continues to champion and highlight in her work as well as being one which is redolent with art historical allegory.
Find out more here.
Abbas Akhavan: study for a garden
Abbas Akhavan's exhibition, study for a garden, ran 30 April - 9 October 2022 with installations in the Crypt and across our garden and grounds. Akhavan's first exhibition in Scotland his practice of on-site research saw him spending time on Bute throughout the first months of 2022.
Through his work Abbas addresses social, economic and political concerns through the lens of ecology, animal and plant life. The site specific works use natural and ancient materials from the island, interrogating the history of Mount Stuart and its landscape.
Find out more here.
