Building an iconic centre for contemporary arts in Essex

The Essex Gallery will:

• Be a fusion of the visual arts with dance, music, poetry, architecture and design.

• Broaden the appreciation and awareness of Essex art through exhibitions characterised by quality and diversity, ranging from paintings of countryside to modern abstract sculpture, from artists who paint for recreation to artists whose work commands world-wide attention.

• Exemplify through art the character of Essex people, their way of life and their culture.

• Broaden public understanding of architecture and the built environment.

• Promote Essex art and Essex culture throughout the UK.
  

   

The Essex Gallery hopes to achieve this by:

• Providing easy access to lively and informative exhibitions and presentations of all genres of contemporary Essex art, including the arts of the moving image, poetry, dance, and music.

• Developing a wide-ranging educational programme with the community at large, through studies in-house, and by qualitative outreach programmes. This can be achieved through showing work in progress in the various workshops to lectures and demonstrations by visiting artists/experts.

• Being a champion for architecture and becoming home to the first Centre for Architecture in Essex. (The term architecture is used to include all aspects of the built environment, including planning, building places, interiors, landscape and public art.)

The Essex Gallery, to achieve these aims, must have:

• A town centre/ coastal location

• Distinctive architecture to reflect its multi-faceted, cultural aims.

• Large display rooms to show off the largest of canvases and installation pieces.

• Intimate areas that might better display, for instance, photography, watercolours, fine craftwork, textiles, computer art, and children’s art.

• A multi-functional space for performances, presentations, lectures as well as visual artists working in the emerging technologies.

• Facilities for those artists exploring art in entirely new forms some of which might lie somewhere between drama, stand-up comedy, rap,  installation art and dance.

• Areas that will specifically provide for the needs of Essex children.

• Areas which lead to a better social mix of visitors, artists, and performers.

• Art and book shops where a wide range of merchandize can be found.

• A digital media centre and Access café.

• Large display rooms to show off the largest of canvases and installation pieces.
  
  

The Essex Gallery will be:

• A place of simple informality and relaxation.

• a place where visitors can meet their friends and visiting artists, poets, authors, dancers, and musicians.

There will be nothing sacred about The Essex Gallery. 

It will always aim for excellence in the genre in the sense that the art on show must be of the very best that Essex can offer. 

However, it should continually strive to be the kind of venue that encourages everyone to feel the need to return again and again.

We are ever mindful of the need to get the best possible advice from a very early stage, of the need to appoint an experienced director/curator to see the project through to completion, and to appoint the specialist staff necessary to make this both a financially viable project and a creative and cultural success for Essex