New Central Oxford Exhibiting Space

OSG has been contacted about an opportunity to exhibit in an indoor space in central Oxford this winter. Please see the message below from Morgan Pinnell at Conways opticians. If you are interested or have questions, please contact Morgan directly.

We have 3 floors above our practice www.conwaysofoxford.com which I'm making into Conways Gallery - a terribly grand name for something I'm just starting!

The rooms are full of natural light as they have big windows, and have all been decorated just plain white when we did the refurb of the building 3yrs ago, and are empty. We as a practice are quite arty with our stock and when we do a window display we've done it ourselves and I hate big contravisions as I think they lack imagination.

We did Artweeks this year and it was a massive success and now we are preparing for the 'winter exhibition' currently John Hounam is having a room and Martin Barfoot the print maker, alas our potter has had to pull out and so there is some unexpected space available (2 rooms). As we already have a painter and a printmaker, I wondered if any of your sculptors would like to take a room?

So it will start on 14th November and run to the end of the 1st week of Jan - rooms do not need to be vacated immediately. I am suggesting that on this night we have an opening till 9.00pm and the artists will of course hopefully be in their rooms. I do not mind how the work is displayed, but if you stick nails in the walls a dab of polyfiller after would be much appreciated!

As we are normally open 9.00- 6.00pm Mon -Sat we stay like that till December and then on a Sunday (7th/14th/21st) we will be open from 11.00-3.00pm in addition.

There will be a centralised room for packing, John & Martin make specific padded envelopes for their pictures and I suggested they number them to match the picture that belongs in it for ease. Otherwise the room would have a table, tape, scissors, string etc The window display I've planned will have a drop down banner - one for each exhibitor with a background of a piece of their work and their name on it. Then there will be a plinth in front of each with a piece of work on. Its the huge window, ground floor and the right of the shop frontage.

A QR code is being made for Conways Gallery and a webpage will be done soon, we'd like the artists to add it when doing their promotion for the exhibition too, and likewise I can have either short videos of people at work or a poster to go on the large screen in the front window. What we'd also like from each exhibitor is for them to do a talk once or twice during the run, they can liase with me on dates when they are available. We'd love it if an exhibitor wants to come and in for a few hours or a day whenever they can.

While the building has insurance please be assured that I would consider all work to be under my domain and care - strangers will not be welcome to just go upstairs if no one is up there, one of us will take them. It is relaxed here and we know lots of our patients by sight and name, we are friendly and will lure people off the street if it looks like they think its only the window and we'll excitedly ask 'what was you favourite or what did you buy' when they come back down.

Oh and as I'm finding out places normally charge rent and commission I'm not doing either at the moment. If you think anyone would be interested, please do ask them to contact me directly.

Kind Regards

Morgan

Conways Opticians & Gallery

07494 894040

01865 244667

info@conwaysofoxford.com