Sophie Barber: Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, never long wet, never long dry
27 Sep 2025-15 Mar 2026

See the bold and experimental paintings of Sophie Barber in her hometown of Hastings.
With intimate three-dimensional ‘cushion’ canvas paintings and large-scale works, Barber’s approach mixes humour and popular culture with folklore and the surreal, playing with the possibilities of scale, reference and materiality.
Rooted in the Sussex landscape, her visual world is filled with echoes of her environment: bird shelters, tents, beaches, and the region’s ever-shifting skies. In new work made for this exhibition, Barber also returns to her long-held interest in the stories and structures of art history, referencing artists she admires, including Georgia O’Keeffe, David Hockney and Vincent van Gogh.