ROSA Magazine Issue 8

ROSA Magazine with Issue 8

Highlights include working page layouts by the much-loved author-illustrator Raymond Briggs, plus previously unpublished insights into the lives of Dorothy Hepworth, Patricia Preece and Stanley Spencer – you’ll never think of the visionary painter in the same way again.

This season, Sussex’s rich arts programme kicks off with celebrations to mark 50 years since pop legends ABBA launched their career at the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton Dome. And it marks the start of Brighton Festival, Brighton Fringe, and Glyndebourne Festival 2024. Among the top shows we’ve got covered are Edo Pop, a stunning exhibition of Japanese prints at Watt’s Gallery, and Bird Bath (part of University of Sussex’s Festival of Ideas), an installation made up of bird song recorded by eco-acoustician Alice Eldridge.

ROSA's contemporary art focus is on textiles, with Imogen Lycett Green interviewing this issue’s cover star, Caron Penney, and her textile artist partner Katherine Swailes. Plus, renowned stitcher Claire Benn offers a guide on how to collect and install art textiles. Then there’s Royal Pavilion curator Alexandra Loske, who explores the reign of the colour purple, as well as a poetic piece on Brighton’s Booth Museum by Christy Edwall.

Don’t miss: Charleston director Nathaniel Hepburn’s My Sussex; the secret art collector’s tips for collecting abstract art; our public art expert’s view of the Sainsbury’s wall reliefs in Bexhill; our garden correspondent’s reappraisal of Eastbourne’s Carpet Gardens, or Art Detective, on the trail of Picasso’s Weeping Woman. Not to mention poetry by Rachel Rooney, a peek inside artists’ studios in Chichester, and a cultural overnighter in Arundel.

Plus wonderful regular columnists, cartoons, activities, auction house updates, art for sale, and Sussex women winemakers, as well as the usual critical guide to unmissable events.