Gateway Events
& Exhibitions
The Lie of the Land
The Lie of the Land
15 September – 12 October 2026
Meet the Artists: Thursday 17 September, 5–7pm
Presented by Social Studios in association with English Bridge Studios, The Lie of the Land brings together work by five artists from across Shropshire: Anne Bremridge, Gill Scriven, Jancis Vaughan, Janie McLeod and Julie Harrison.
Across painting, drawing, printmaking, collage and sculpture, the exhibition explores different responses to landscape, place and the world around us. From recognisable forms and observations of the natural environment to abstraction, texture, colour and material, each artist brings a distinct way of looking.
The artists are connected through Social Studios, a regular creative group at English Bridge Studios where artists come together to make work, share ideas and offer peer support and feedback.
Join us at Gateway Gallery on Thursday 17 September from 5–7pm for an informal evening to meet the artists, see the exhibition and find out more about the work.
The Lie of the Land
15 September – 12 October 2026
Gateway Gallery, Shrewsbury
Free entry
SOUVENIRS by ROB LAWTON
SOUVENIRS
Opening night: Thu 22 Oct, 5–7pm
On view: 23 Oct – 6 Nov
Souvenirs brings together a collection of work by artist Robert Lawton, including painting and sculptural pieces that explore objects, images and the traces they leave behind.
There is something wonderfully tactile about Rob’s work. Painted surfaces, handmade forms and unexpected details give the pieces a sense of having been found, kept or carried with you. Familiar things become slightly strange, while small objects take on a character and importance of their own.
The exhibition invites visitors to spend time with the work and make their own connections, whether to a place, an object, a memory or simply something that catches their eye.
The Salopian Open 2026
The Salopian Open 2026
Entries open until 31 October
The Salopian Open returns to The Gateway Gallery this November, bringing together a selection of artworks by artists from Shropshire and further afield. Whether you’re exhibiting for the first time or have an established practice, it’s an opportunity to share your work with new audiences and be part of a group exhibition in Shrewsbury.
You don’t need to live in Shropshire to take part. Artists can submit up to three artworks for a single £20 entry fee, with selected pieces exhibited from 13 November 2026 until mid-January 2027.
The Gateway Gallery is run by SADAA Arts (Shrewsbury and District Arts Association), a registered charity supporting arts and creativity in the local community. The Salopian Open helps raise funds for this work, with entry fees contributing to keeping the gallery open and supporting its exhibition programme.
Awards and prizes
Alongside the opportunity to exhibit at The Gateway Gallery, this year’s Salopian Open will include awards for Local Talent, Rising Star and Innovation, returning from last year’s exhibition.
The overall winner will receive their own solo exhibition at The Gateway Gallery, giving them the space to share a wider collection of their work.
More prizes and details of this year’s judging panel will be announced soon.
Enter your work
Entry costs £20 for up to three artworks. You can submit one, two or three pieces for the same fee.
Entry fees help keep The Gateway Gallery open and support its exhibition programme. Each artwork is considered individually, and submission does not guarantee selection.
Before entering, please make sure:
Each artwork measures no more than 60 × 60 cm.
Each artwork has a sale price of £1,000 or less.
You have a clear photograph of each piece.
You can arrange delivery in November and collection in January if selected.
We’ll also ask for a short artist’s statement of up to 200 words. One statement covers all your submitted work.
How to enter
Complete your artist and artwork details through our shop, then pay the £20 entry fee. Your confirmation email will include a link to upload your artwork photographs.
Please complete both steps by 31 October 2026.
We’ll contact you by email with the selection outcome and provide delivery arrangements for selected work.
Already paid?
Sales
If your work sells during the exhibition, The Gateway Gallery takes a 30% commission, with the remaining 70% going to you. This supports the gallery and helps cover the costs of running exhibitions.
Please take the commission into account when setting your selling price.
A look back at 2025
Last year’s Salopian Open brought together more than 90 artworks, spanning a wide range of materials, styles and approaches.
Oswestry painter Rob Lawton received the Local Talent Award and the overall prize of a solo exhibition at The Gateway Gallery. Zoe Keeton won the Rising Star Award for Self-portrait with Green Glove, while Stephen Laurie received the Innovation Award for his handbuilt vessel Green Crosses.
The 2025 prizewinners were chosen by a panel of four judges: Professor Andrew Brewerton, ceramicist Katharine Morling, artist and educator Faye Lorente Shyllon, and Michelle Lloyd, founder of United Art Space and author of Your Art Matters.
Last years’ Salopian Open judges
PHOTOGRAPHY NOW!
Photography Now! brings together work from 22 photographers, each with their own way of seeing the world.
Light Loss Destruction Devotion
Light Loss Destruction Devotion
By Natalie Chapman, Rory Chapman, Lola Chapman, and Harriet Chapman
Private View | Fri 19 Jun 2026, 5pm to 7pm
Public Exhibition | Mon 22 Jun to Fri 17 Jul 2026
Exhibition Overview
Light Loss Destruction Devotion brings together four artists whose practices sit in conversation with one another through shared experience, material sensitivity, and an unflinching engagement with the human condition.
Working across painting, photography, and abstraction, Natalie, Rory, Lola, and Harriet Chapman each explore different facets of memory, identity, and emotional survival. The exhibition moves between the personal and the collective, holding space for vulnerability, resistance, and transformation.
Themes of trauma, perception, landscape, and psychological tension run throughout, creating a body of work that is both intimate and confrontational. Rather than offering resolution, the exhibition invites reflection. It asks what is lost, what is carried forward, and what remains when we strip things back to their most honest form.
This exhibition will feature new work created specifically for Gateway Gallery.
The Artists
Natalie Chapman
Natalie Chapman’s practice centres on the human experience, navigating trauma, healing, and the inequalities faced by women. Through bold, expressive painting, her work captures both vulnerability and resilience, using colour and gesture to convey emotional intensity.
Her work engages deeply with the psychological and the social, exploring how personal histories intersect with wider structures of power and expectation. Through this, she creates spaces for reflection, catharsis, and empowerment.
Natalie’s work has been exhibited widely, including at MOMA Wales, RBSA Birmingham, and the National Library of Wales, and she has been shortlisted for several major prizes including the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize.
Links
www.nataliechapmanartist.co.uk
Instagram: @nataliechapmanartist
Rory Chapman
Rory Chapman works across photography and film, creating photo textual narratives that explore psychology, identity, and socio political tension. His practice draws from documentary, editorial photography, and narrative cinema, often rejecting traditional ideas of polish or perfection.
His work challenges the viewer directly, confronting themes of mental health, repression, and the pressure to conform. Rather than aesthetic comfort, Rory’s work offers confrontation and reflection, questioning the cost of perfection and the realities we suppress.
Rory’s work has been exhibited internationally and is held in the permanent collection at Cyfarthfa Castle following his award in the Juxtaposed Art Prize 2025.
Links
www.rorychapman.com
Instagram: @blindeyerory
Lola Chapman
Lola Chapman’s work translates the lived experience of landscape into colour, movement, and form. Drawing from the terrain of West Wales, her paintings capture atmosphere rather than depiction, creating immersive, sensory responses to place.
Working instinctively, Lola builds compositions through layered gestures that echo shifting light, weather, and memory. Her work exists between abstraction and recognition, holding both the intimacy of personal experience and the expansiveness of the natural world.
Links
Instagram: @lolarosechapman.art
Harriet Chapman
Harriet Chapman’s work explores internal landscapes through abstraction, drawing on memory, dreams, and personal symbolism. Her paintings transform autobiographical material into layered visual language, where meaning is suggested rather than fixed.
Recurring motifs and familiar forms appear throughout her work, acting as carriers of memory and emotional resonance. By maintaining ambiguity, Harriet creates space for viewers to connect their own experiences with the work, bridging the personal and the universal.
Links
http://www.harriettchapman.com/
Instagram: @harriettchapmanartist
La Pared - Faye Lorente Shyllon
La Pared - Faye Lorente Shyllon
Private View | Thu 28 May 2026, 5pm to 7pm
Public Exhibition | Mon 1 Jun to Fri 12 Jun 2026
Gateway Gallery is pleased to present La Pared, a new exhibition by Shrewsbury based artist Faye Lorente Shyllon.
Faye’s work explores a semi abstract visual language shaped by observation, memory and her connection to Andalucía. Working across painting and drawing, she brings together architectural forms, textured surfaces, walls, windows, domestic grilles, repeated motifs and details from Spanish culture and landscape.
The exhibition reflects Faye’s interest in rhythm, pattern and structure, while also allowing space for instinctive mark making and personal memory. Through charcoal, pencil, marker pen, paint and stencils, her work moves between the built environment and the remembered image, creating pieces that feel both grounded and expressive.
La Pared invites visitors to spend time with work that is layered, thoughtful and visually rich, shaped by place, pattern and the quiet details that stay with us.
About the artist
Faye Lorente Shyllon is an artist living and working in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. She studied Fine Art Painting at Brighton University and holds a PGCE from Goldsmiths, University of London.
After 25 years of teaching art and design in schools and colleges, Faye has returned to her own art practice. Her work brings together observation, memory and formal structure, drawing on Andalusian landscapes, Spanish architecture, repeated motifs and personal visual references.
Faye is also a Trustee and ACE Oversight Member of The New Art Gallery Walsall, a Governance Board Member of The National Society for Education in Art and Design, a judge of The Salopian Open and an award winning graduate.
Faye will also be joining Arts Cafe at English Bridge Studios on Tuesday 9 June, where she will be talking about her work, her exhibition La Pared, and leading a simple hands on creative activity.
The Art Shrew Podcast
To hear more about Faye’s practice and the ideas behind La Pared, you can also listen to her episode of The Art Shrew Podcast, hosted by Lucy Caddel. In the episode, Faye talks about her work, her background as an artist and educator, and the themes behind her upcoming exhibition at Gateway Gallery.
EBS Showcase
EBS Showcase
Annual Group Exhibition 2026
Private View | Thu 9 Apr 2026, 5pm to 7pm
Public Exhibition | Mon 13 Apr to Wed 27 May 2026
English Bridge Studios (EBS) is pleased to present our new annual showcase at the Gateway Gallery. This exhibition is a brand new yearly event for us, bringing together the different work created by our resident artists all in one place.
As a studio that covers many different styles, the showcase features a wide range of artwork. Visitors can expect to see everything from printmaking and drawing to photography, ceramics, and mixed media—reflecting the many different talents found within our Shrewsbury studios.
This exhibition is a celebration of our local creative community and an invitation for you to see the latest projects coming out of EBS. Whether you’re a regular at our studios or just curious to see what we do, we welcome you to drop in and enjoy this varied collection of local work.
Harvey’s Channel Crossing Exhibition
Harvey’s Channel Crossing Exhibition
Private View | Thu 19 Mar 2026, 5pm to 7pm
Public Exhibition | Fri 20 Mar to Wed 8 Apr 2026
We’re pleased to present Channel Crossing, the first solo exhibition by multi media artist Harvey Taylor.
The exhibition brings together visual art, performance poetry, spoken and written word, and percussion to explore the idea of “channeling” as a creative experience. Many artists describe moments when ideas seem to arrive almost fully formed, as though they have been received rather than consciously constructed. For Harvey, this mysterious process sits at the heart of creativity.
Using the metaphor of a channel as a flowing stream of experience, the exhibition reflects on how we move through life encountering influences, memories, emotions and events that shape the stories we tell and the art we create. Some journeys are direct, others wander or circle back on themselves, but each crossing is unique.
Alongside these reflections on creativity, the exhibition also touches on contemporary social and cultural debates, encouraging thoughtful exploration and conversation between visitors.
Preview evening
The public preview takes place on Thursday 19 March from 5pm to 7pm. During the evening Harvey will present live spoken word and performance elements between approximately 5.30pm and 6.30pm, offering visitors a chance to experience the work in a more immersive way.
Channel Crossing Conversations
Visitors are also invited to join Harvey for two informal discussion evenings exploring the creative process and the ideas behind the exhibition:
26 March, 5.15pm to 6.45pm
2 April, 5.15pm to 6.45pm
Harvey also hopes to spend much of the exhibition period working from the gallery, giving visitors the chance to meet the artist and talk about the work.
Admission is free and everyone is welcome.
COLLAGE NOW! Exhibition
COLLAGE NOW! Exhibition
COLLAGE NOW! is a curated exhibition celebrating contemporary collage, from cut paper and mixed media to assemblage and image layering. It is a show rooted in collaboration, bringing together artists whose work highlights just how expressive and inventive collage can be.
Curated by Caris Jackson, collage artist and a patron of Gateway Gallery, Collage Now sits within the wider Colour Now programme developed by Lucy Caddel.
Private View | Fri 9 Jan 2026, 5pm to 7pm
Public Exhibition | Mon 12 Jan to Thu 12 Mar 2026
Featured artists
Nick B
Isabel Bradley
Tin City
Tricia Crowther
Stew Harrison
JoyPolloi
Carly Williams
Curator
Caris Jackson
We would love you to come along, spend time with the work, and see what collage can do when artists and spaces come together.
The Salopian Open
An open exhibition at the Gateway Gallery welcoming work in all media, with entries accepted until 31 October. The show runs 17 November to 5 January.
Sense of Place from CRPE
A month-long photography exhibition at the Gateway Gallery celebrating the Shropshire places people love, with a preview on Thursday 2 October and a workshop day on Friday 31 October.
ArtNow! Community Show by Lucy Caddel
A joyful new exhibition at the Gateway Gallery showcases artwork by students of local artist and educator Lucy Caddel. Curated in rainbow colours, the display celebrates a year of her Shropshire Tropicalia classes and workshops, with every student contributing a favourite piece.
It all begins
with an idea
Contact us.
Gateway Gallery
The Gateway Centre
Shrewsbury
Shropshire, SY1 1NB