For centuries, Torbay’s landscape has shaped the people, industries, and stories that define it. As part of the English Riviera UNESCO Global Geopark, this coastline tells a tale of deep time—of shifting continents, lost worlds, and human histories intertwined with the land. But how do we translate these vast and complex narratives into something we can feel, see, and experience? The Geopark Artist Residency Programme was created to explore this question, inviting four artists to engage with Torbay’s Geopark designation through their creative practices. Over six months, these artists have worked closely with geologists, conservators, historians, and local communities, producing new bodies of work that respond to the landscapes, histories, and urgent conservation challenges of this unique region. The residency programme unfolds across two exhibitions, and two venues, each exploring a distinct but connected aspect of Torbay’s heritage. The first at Torre Abbey (18th March - 18th May), featuring James Murch and Laura Segan, responds to Torre Abbey’s place within the Geopark and its ongoing restoration. Through plein air painting, experimental photography, and textiles, these works reflect on themes of degradation, preservation, and the constant tension between nature and human intervention. Coinciding with the Geopark Festival Weekend, the second exhibition hosted at the Artizan Collective Gallery (25th May – 22nd June) brings together all four residency artists: James Murch, Laura Segan, Gill Melling, and Rachael Allain. Expanding on the themes of the first showcase, this exhibition journeys beyond Torre Abbey into marine environments, microscopic ecosystems, and human entanglements with the natural world. Each artist has approached Torbay’s landscape from a different perspective, producing work across painting, print, photography, textiles, installation, and digital media. Their residencies have been an opportunity to engage with experts, immerse themselves in local history, and respond directly to the environments around them. Each exhibition invites audiences to see the Geopark not just as a place, but as a living story—one that is still unfolding. Whether through painted landscapes, experimental processes, or digital interventions, the works on display ask us to reflect on our relationship with the land, the fragility of the ecosystems around us, and the future of Torbay’s most historic sites. The Geopark Artist Residency Programme has been made possible by the Torbay Local Heritage Grant Scheme, funded through the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts Council England, Torbay Council, and the Friends of Torre Abbey. The programme is a partnership between Artizan Collective CIC, Torre Abbey, and the English Riviera UNESCO Global Geopark, working to explore new ways of interpreting and engaging with Torbay’s natural and cultural heritage. We invite you to explore, reflect, and engage with these works—and to see Torbay’s UNESCO Geopark through an entirely new lens.

‘Salt and other stories’ (2024/5) is a series of photographs and textile works all developed during or in response to time spent as an artist in residence at Torre Abbey in 2024. All of the works were created with a major theme of Torre Abbey’s restoration in mind. I was fascinated to learn about the challenges Torre Abbey faces due to its proximity to the sea and how the salt air erodes the plaster. I was interested in this particularly because salt is often used as a preservative in my artwork whether through fixing photographs as the final step or in the process of creating natural dyes to colour textiles. I wanted to play with the concept of erosion and preservation as a theme. I was drawn to the beautiful gardens at Torre Abbey and the abundance of flowers while I was there on residency. I wanted to capture them with my cameras as each day and each week that I spent there, more of the flowers came and went. Having experienced a significant bereavement recently, grief and loss is ever present in my work. Working with the garden at Torre Abbey was a visual reminder of change, of new life, death and decay. My photographic method is unusual because I don't use traditional chemicals to develop my photographs. I collect plant matter from the area I am photographing and use this along with some natural ingredients to create a site specific developer. This is a hugely important part of my process as it allows the place I am photographing to make its mark on the images I am producing. No two developing solutions are the same and because of this some of the control of what the images will look like is taken away from me. The process becomes unique to the plants I am photographing and the strength of the developing solution that I have created from them. The textile works that I have created for the exhibition are a response to the drawings, paintings and photographic studies I made of the garden while I was there. I have created these pieces in my studio over the winter and it has brought me great joy to be reminded of the beauty and colour that I experienced in my time in the gardens. The textile pieces are informed by my photographs and yet are boldly different in their aesthetic. They compliment each other, boundless colour and joy so obvious in some of the pieces and calmer more sombre and reflective scenes in others. In this way the art that I have created for this exhibition reflects my initial theme strongly and acknowledges that two things can be true at once. We cannot have life without death, we cannot have beauty without the inevitable knowledge that at some point there will also be decay. In the same way that I use salt in my work to preserve it for the future, it also acts as a destructive force in other ways. Seeing my work altogether reminds me that there is always balance.

The Artizan Women’s Open Exhibition returns for 2025, continuing its mission to celebrate, amplify, and champion women artists in a diverse and inclusive showcase. Now a staple of our annual programme, the exhibition invites women artists from across the UK to share their unique perspectives, reflecting on themes of visibility, recognition, and equity in the arts. Held at Artizan Collective Gallery, Fleet Walk, the exhibition will feature UK and international artists, each contributing work that highlights the breadth of contemporary creative practice. The show opens on International Women’s Day, 8th March, setting the stage for a five-week programme that acknowledges both the challenges women face in the art world and the extraordinary contributions they continue to make. At a time when conversations around gender, representation, and artistic equity remain as urgent as ever, this exhibition provides a vital platform for discussion, connection, and inspiration. Across a range of disciplines, from painting and print to sculpture and photography, the Artizan Women’s Open brings together work that is innovative, thought-provoking, and deeply personal. This year, the exhibition takes on special significance as it will conclude on 12th April with a celebratory closing event coinciding with the unveiling of a new Agatha Christie statue, sculpted by Elisabeth Hadley. A historic moment for Torbay’s most famous literary figure, this event marks an intersection between the region’s creative past and present, reinforcing the importance of recognising and honouring women’s contributions to culture.

This body of work is rooted in James's time at Torre Abbey, where he explored the building, its grounds, and the surrounding landscape during a month-long residency. The smaller open-air studies provided valuable insights that informed his larger works, blending real and imagined elements. On a larger scale, James envisioned nature dramatically overtaking the abbey, engulfing its structure, and emphasising themes of transformation and resilience. The site supports a unique ecosystem, and James sought to highlight the importance of preserving the architecture while celebrating the natural environment. Without intervention, nature could reclaim the space entirely, blurring the boundaries between the man-made and natural worlds.

At the edge of land and sea, Torre Abbey has stood for over 800 years, its walls shaped by history, weather, and time. But like all historic sites, it is constantly in flux—eroded by the elements, preserved through human intervention, and always on the brink of change. As this landmark undergoes a significant restoration, two artists have been invited to respond to its story, exploring what happens when nature reclaims history, when preservation meets decay, and when the past is held in the present. The Geopark Artist Residency Programme has brought together James Murch and Laura Segan to examine Torre Abbey’s place within the English Riviera UNESCO Global Geopark, responding to themes of degradation, restoration, and conservation. Over a month-long studio residency, the artists engaged directly with Torre Abbey’s architecture, collections, and ongoing preservation work, producing new works that offer an artistic lens on the Abbey’s evolution and its uncertain future. James Murch – Roots and Relics Through plein air painting, James captures the raw beauty of Torre Abbey as it shifts between survival and collapse. His large-scale works imagine a future where nature overtakes the Abbey, its walls softened by vegetation, its form dissolving into the landscape. His work raises questions about the fate of heritage buildings and what is lost—or gained—when nature takes control. Laura Segan – Salt and Other Stories Laura’s work explores salt as both a destructive and preservative force, mirroring the challenges Torre Abbey faces due to its proximity to the sea. Using alternative photographic processes and botanical dyes from the Abbey’s gardens, her work captures the fragility of historic materials, the slow creep of erosion, and the intimate moments of change that often go unnoticed. Founded in 1196, Torre Abbey is one of Devon and Cornwall’s most significant medieval sites, its structure revealing centuries of human adaptation and natural wear. Now, as it undergoes its latest restoration, the Abbey provides a unique setting for these artists to explore the relationship between preservation and transformation. This exhibition invites audiences to see Torre Abbey not as a relic of the past, but as a living space—one that is shaped by time, environment, and human hands. Through painting, photography, and installation, these works reflect on the delicate balance between decay and preservation, nature and intervention, loss and renewal. This programme has been made possible by the Torbay Local Heritage Grant Scheme, with funding from National Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts Council England, Torbay Council, and the Friends of Torre Abbey. The Geopark Artist Residency Programme is a partnership between Artizan Collective CIC, Torre Abbey, and the English Riviera UNESCO Global Geopark, working to explore new ways of interpreting and engaging with Torbay’s heritage. This is just the first of two exhibitions presenting the outcomes of the Geopark Artist Residencies. A second showcase, featuring all four residency artists, will be held at Artizan Collective Gallery from 25th May – 22nd June 2025, coinciding with the Geopark Festival Weekend. We invite you to explore, reflect, and engage with these works—and to see Torre Abbey’s past, present, and future through an entirely new lens.

Artizan welcomes London based artist Anna Walsh as we continue our series of solo shows at our dedicated printmaking and sculpture gallery on Lucius Street Anna’s work explores human interactions with the natural world, based on a lifelong love of nature and animals and influenced by a childhood spent in the countryside and city. Her work is a combination of drawing, photography and digital processes, culminating in print-based work, including screen prints, digital prints, cyanotypes and digital prints. She uses playful compositions to draw the viewer in to look closer and express her never ending wonder of the variety of animal life on earth. Anna’s exhibition will be hosted in our main gallery space whilst in our Courtyard Gallery we shall be hosting the first of our seasonal printmaker open exhibitions. Each space will also feature specially selected 3D works from our seasonal sculpture artists. Opening week Tuesday - Saturday 10 am - 5 pm Thereafter Thursday - Saturday 10 am - 5 pm