Isle of Wight Open Studios brings together artists from across the Island this May, opening their doors and welcoming visitors into their creative worlds – and this year the range of work on offer spans oil painting, ceramics, watercolour, collage, linocut, printmaking, stitch, puppetry and more.
From Ventnor to Ryde and Bonchurch to Blackwater, there is something remarkable to discover at every stop on the trail.
New oil paintings come to Ventnor
Self-taught traditional oil painter Robert Carter joins the team at Peer Studios Gallery in Ventnor for the first fortnight of the event, bringing a fresh body of work painted in retirement.
Robert works exclusively in oils on canvas across a wide range of subjects – portraits, landscapes, seascapes, still lifes and beach scenes – drawing on traditions from 18th-century English painting through to early 20th-century and French post-impressionist influences.
He describes each canvas as something of an unpredictable pursuit,
“For me, the process of painting each picture is an adventure in colour, form and light and shade and, when it works, is half skill and half luck, to be honest. Hence the variety in subjects!”
Hosts April Dixcey and Francis Safaie-Brown welcome Robert to the gallery at Peer Studios, 29a Pier Street, Ventnor PO38 1SX, open from 10am to around 4.30pm daily until 25th May 2026.
Rare access to a Ryde ceramicist’s studio
In Ryde, ceramicist Sue Paraskeva opens her Green Street studio for four days this month – a rare opportunity to step inside a working space and see her hand-thrown porcelain up close.
Sue’s cream porcelain tableware range takes centre stage: each piece hand-thrown in pure porcelain, glazed inside and left bare outside, designed for daily use rather than display.
Alongside the tableware, visitors will find wood-fired pieces including Ceremonial Vessels and Funeral Wall Discs, as well as her striking new “Ignis” series – small works created on her dining room table during her ongoing recovery from Long Covid.
Sue describes the genesis of those pieces,
“My new ‘Ignis’ works were made during my ongoing recovery from Long Covid — created on my dining room table when getting to the studio wasn’t possible. Small works, real flame, found objects, paper. I didn’t know what they were at the time. I think I do now.”
The studio at 22a Green Street, Ryde opens daily from 22nd to 25th May, 11am to 4pm. Her work also sits on her website.
Half-price originals and a live watercolour demonstration
Self-taught watercolour artist Angela Hewitt offers something extraordinary to art buyers this month: 50 per cent off all original artwork across three Open Studios dates, Thursday 21st and Saturday 23rd May 2026.
Angela has spent 30 years painting watercolours of farm animals and wild animals and has sold more than 65,000 original paintings in that time – a figure she stresses is not a typo.
Her passion for wildlife led her to purchase ten acres of neglected farmland in 2007, converting it into Naturezones, a wildlife education centre and nature reserve at Birchmore Lane, Blackwater PO30 3BP, where a large body of her artwork sits on permanent display.
The venue has wheelchair access to toilets and the pavilion, the number three bus serves the site, and it sits on the Newport to Sandown cycle track.
Home-made cakes, scones and refreshments are available on the day, with card payments accepted.
A historic Bonchurch venue for two Isle of Wight artists
Down on the south-east coast, two artists – Rachel Clare and Teresa Grimaldi – collaborate in the historic surroundings of Bonchurch.
Rachel has spent the last seven years combining drawing and collage using found materials including 1960s newspapers discovered under old carpets, brown paper bags from vegetable market stalls and old school exercise books, combined with graphite and glue to push the human form towards textural abstraction.
She honed this practice under artist Francis Bowyer – who taught at the Royal Academy Schools and is a member of the New English Art Club – at Richmond Art School, and now regularly attends the Ventnor Life Drawing Group.
Rachel serves as Artistic Director of Crying Out Loud, a visual theatre production company based in Portsmouth, and has lived on the Isle of Wight since 2023.
Teresa Grimaldi: puppetry, performance and Bonchurch folklore
Teresa Grimaldi was born on the Island into a family of ice cream vendors and built a career spanning puppetry, animation and visual performance, with group and solo shows in the UK, Norway and Italy.
Her work has most recently focused on the folklore of All Colours Sam, the Sandown Clown, developed during a residency at Boojum and Snark in Sandown, and she showed alongside Sarah Vardy at Quay Arts in Newport earlier this year.
Teresa captures the spirit of the Bonchurch collaboration,
“I’m thrilled to be collaborating with Rachel this year. It’s proving to be a very interesting process, bringing existing works through the tunnel to rework in response to the historic surroundings. New curious conversations are evolving between creatures, cabinets, collage and creaking stairs.”
Finding the Bonchurch venue
The venue sits at 2 Undermount, Bonchurch – enter the driveway by walking or wheeling past Undermount Lodge on Bonchurch Village Road, through the tunnel and then turn left.
There is no car access except for limited disabled parking if arranged in advance.
Visits run daily between 11am and 4pm on 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th May 2026.
