Exhibition runs until 3rd July 2023
The next exhibition at the West Pier Centre is a new departure – an open exhibition of depictions of the West Pier which has been organised and curated by West Pier Centre volunteer Peter Sofroniou.
“We put out an open call for artists in autumn last year, asking anyone who had done work featuring the West Pier to submit something if they were interested,” Peter says. “We got a good response from about 60 local artists and photographers, and we have whittled it down to 16 exhibitors.
“The show features a mixture of traditional oil painting, photography, prints, drawings, lino-cuts and collage – quite a wide variety of different styles, sizes, colours, and most importantly, different interpretations of the West Pier and what it means to the artists.”
The sheer number of images of the Pier created by the city’s artistic community was the inspiration for the exhibition.
“I used to organise the Brunswick Town Art Fair every summer which necessitated visiting lots of Artists’ Open Houses to research local artists’ work,” Peter says. “I noticed three images of Brighton that were the most often depicted – the Royal Pavilion, the Birdcage bandstand and the West Pier. And in my experience the Pier was the most photographed, painted or drawn image of them all.
“It was an idea that stayed with me and now as a volunteer at West Pier Centre I thought of asking lots of different people to submit work of the Pier and of course the Centre is the perfect place to exhibit it.
“Local people have an enormous emotional attachment to the Pier. The surviving skeletal framework has become the most iconic image and representation of Brighton nowadays. It is almost a work of art in its own right, even though we lose a bit more of it every year. The variety of work is one of the most interesting things about this exhibition.”
6th April – 3rd July 2023. West Pier Centre, 103-105 King’s Road Arches, Brighton, BN1 2FN. Open Thursday – Monday 11am – 4.30pm. Free entry.
Image: West Pier – Rebecca Loomed
