Rye Creative Centre

Name: Rye Creative Centre
Address: New Road, Rye, TN317LS, GB
Telephone: +441797229797
Price range: ££
Rating: 4.4

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Rye Creative Centre

Rye Creative Centre offers a dynamic programme of events, workshops and exhibitions throughout the year in the beautifully renovated Freda Gardham school.

The Rye Creative Centre was launched as a centre of creative excellence in 2009 in the decommissioned Freda Gardham School. It provides a unique resource both for the people of Rye and beyond. A beautiful space to hire for any event. We specialise in 'The Arts' and event management with our outdoor cafe onsite, in house catering and stunning views of Ryes countryside. We house the private studios

of over 30 visiting and resident artists, who offer a range of workshops, master-classes, talks, demonstrations and exhibitions throughout the year. Our next public exhibition 'Variations' is a collection of the studio holders works and opens on the 26th of August. For more information please visit our website www.ryecreativecentre.co.uk

09/05/2025

The Studio is one big happy family of artists, and they’re in the news!
Come and visit Jenny and some of the artists she supports at our Spring Open Studios to find out more .

5-8pm Friday 16 May
10am-4pm Saturday 17 May

Come and explore the studios and meet the artists, everyone is welcome.
There’ll be complimentary refreshments on Friday evening and in the Art Room on Saturday

08/05/2025

Who works in a studio like this?
Come and find out at our Spring Open Studios event on Friday, 16th May from 5-8PM, and Saturday, 17th May from 10AM-4PM. This is a fantastic chance to meet the artists, explore their creative spaces, and view their work in the very environment where it was brought to life. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to purchase art directly from the creators and find out all about our creative workshops.

On Saturday, 17th May don’t miss the pop-up cafe in the Art Room, hosted by our wonderful neighbour Esther from GroundUp Coffeeshop. She’ll serve her fabulous coffee and delicious snacks, perfect for those stopping by. Be sure to visit and treat yourself.

FREE PARKING

FREE ADMISSION

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Ground floor only

30/04/2025

Introducing the New Road Artists who’ll be opening their doors for the Rye Creative Centre Spring Open Studios in a couple of weeks

In order of appearance

& the elusive who has managed to escape having his photo taken!

Friday, 16th May 5 - 8 pm
Saturday, 17th May 10 am - 4pm.

This is a fantastic chance to meet the artists, explore their creative spaces, and view their work in the very environment where it was brought to life. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to purchase art directly from the creators.

On Saturday, 17th May don’t miss the pop-up cafe in the Art Room, hosted by our wonderful neighbour Esther from GroundUp Coffeeshop. She’ll serve her fabulous coffee and delicious snacks, perfect for those stopping by. Be sure to visit and treat yourself.

FREE PARKING

FREE ADMISSION

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Ground floor only

23/04/2025

will be opening her studio door in a few weeks time for our Spring Open Studios event. Here’s a little taste of what you can expect!

Melanie says “The force that drives my work is an intention to create paintings which allude to a sensory experience of ‘place’. Generally that ‘place’ will exist in the real world, and sometimes it will exist within the possibilities of painting.”

Come and experience these extraordinary surfaces in person and Melanie will be there to tell you all about it

Friday, 16th May from 5 PM to 8 PM
Saturday, 17th May from 10 AM to 4 PM

This is a fantastic chance to meet the artists, explore their creative spaces, and view their work in the very environment where it was brought to life. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to purchase art directly from the creators.

On Saturday, 17th May don’t miss the pop-up cafe in the Art Room, hosted by our wonderful neighbour Esther from GroundUp Coffeeshop. She’ll serve her fabulous coffee and delicious snacks, perfect for those stopping by. Be sure to visit and treat yourself.

FREE PARKING
FREE ADMISSION
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Ground floor only

18/03/2025

This Saturday the annual Rye Society of Artists
Spring Exhibition opens at Rye Art Gallery

The exhibition features works by RSA members and invited guest artists including some of the .rye working at Rye Creative Centre nick

Private view: Saturday 22nd March 11am - 1 pm
Rye Art Gallery
107 High Street, Rye TN31 7JE

Open daily 11 am to 5 pm
Closed on Tuesdays
Sundays and Bank Holidays 11.00am to
4.00pm
The exhibition continues until
Monday 5th May 2025

www.ryesocietyofartists.co.uk
www.ryeartgallery.org.uk

‘Speaking Without Words’ is a new zine by and It is now available to purchase, £20 + P&PEmail hen@practiseroom.com to...

02/03/2025

‘Speaking Without Words’ is a new zine by and
It is now available to purchase, £20 + P&P
Email [email protected] to order your limited edition copy

Reposted • practise room Zine 1st Edition
‘Speaking Without Words’....

to purchase yours email: [email protected]
£20 + pp

a nudge to think, feel, draw, to connect, a gathering of thoughts well practised considered for you to take up like threads to continue your conversation with pencil and paper.

Limited edition they arrive wrapped in tissue in a clear envelope, along with an authentication certificate.

28/02/2025

is in the news!
This is the latest in the series of articles by the creatives working …

The future of the Rye Creative Centre (RCC) remains uncertain – it is due to be demolished as part of the housing development planned for the Freda Gardham old school site. Rye News has been featuring the stories of some of the artists at the centre who have been telling us about their work and their concerns for the future. This week, local artist and printmaker Nicola Hill champions on the need for an Art Centre in Rye.

I was initially drawn to the Rye Creative Centre in 2013 – tempted by Nick Archer’s life-drawing classes. It felt so good to get back into drawing. It was reminiscent of my time on my Hastings Foundation (albeit a few decades on). I was hooked!

In 2018 I moved into a very small space at the centre, transferring to a shared studio in 2020. Time spent in the studio is precious. But also became unpredictable…management changes, the pandemic…a cost-of-living crisis. Despite all this, I continue to enjoy my studio part-time.

I’m currently working on a series of linocut sheep, after a brief obsession with birds. My flock is growing and will be ready for Wash House & Parlour, at Strand House, Wish Ward, Rye at Easter. Printmaking is also something I like: its graphic simplicity and process is quite addictive.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve had various seasonal jobs to supplement my income. Working outdoors in the local landscape is quite liberating. And I now have a series of figurative drawings and paintings from working in a turkey shed, a hop garden, and a vineyard.

Being a studio-holder has given me the opportunity to meet others and share our experiences, skills, and ideas. With the centre’s broad brush of artists, designers, and makers, all at varying stages of their careers, we are a strong creative team.

I feel lucky to be a part of Rye’s creative community, with the town’s long history of visiting and resident artists and writers.

Read the full article here https://www.ryenews.org.uk/people/strengthening-our-creative-community
Click on the link in our bio!

18/02/2025

Join us for an exciting event celebrating the legendary Charlie Chaplin at Rye Creative Centre.

Part concert, part film screening with live score, ZRI’s Adventures with Charlie Chaplin is a show for all ages. ZRI bring all their flair and energy to Charlie Chaplin’s early classic ‘The Adventurer’, including tunes by Django Reinhardt, Georges Boulanger, and much more.

Saturday 15 March 2025
18:30 - 20:30
Tickets available via Eventbrite via the link in our bio!

14/02/2025

Thanks to for this article by another of our resident creatives

Rye’s creative space by David Eckold

There’s still no news on the future of the Rye Creative Centre – it is due to be demolished as part of the housing development planned for the Freda Gardham old school site. This week, as part of our series on the artists who work at the centre, David Eckold makes a passionate case for keeping the building as a creative space – for future artists and for Rye.

I’ve talked to people who were here before me. They come to our open studios and remember the swimming pool, theatre and their primary school years here. As we talk we’re standing in what were the changing rooms – now my studio space. I had to remove the iron brackets around the walls that supported the slatted benches. No easy task – this place was build to last. I’ve given up trying to drill into the bricks as they’re too hard – I have to drill into the mortar lines. Originally the changing rooms, my studio space only has small windows, but this is fine for me as some of the things I make light up!

Visitors are curious and positive about my work and ask lots of questions which I enjoy. I can see, stirring in some of them, the desire to start creating themselves and we talk about this too. The urge to create is in most of us in some form or another. And they are so pleased to find that their school building, which holds so many memories from their childhood, has found this new purpose.

For fifteen years now, a collective of thirty artist and makers known as ‘New Road Artists’ has rented the building giving it a new lease of life with an exciting future. Over the years it has evolved into a local hub for creative activity with the work of many artists regularly found in the galleries of Rye supplying them with a flow of locally created work.

Go to to read the full article

13/02/2025

Congratulations to Nick Archer who is currently exhibiting London as part of a stellar line up of artists including Gillian Ayres, , Michael Craig Martin, Jim Dine, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Alex Katz, Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, David Shrigley, , Tom Wesselmann, Vivienne Westwood and many more 👏👏👏👏👏

Tickets start at £10 and the exhibition continues until 5 May

Posted • .nick Delighted that ‘Untitled No 6’ 140 x 120 cm is currently on show in the show ‘Flowers - flora in contemporary art and culture’ The exhibition runs until 5th May with thanks to

05/02/2025

Congratulations to Alfie Caine on his forthcoming solo exhibition The Chalk Carver‘s House at Margot Samel Gallery, NYC. This will be his first show with the gallery and in the US

On Hindover Hill, west of the village of Litlington in Sussex, a white chalk horse lays 20 meters tall against the land. Set within grassland and wild meadows, it is suspected that its initial carving occurred in the 1800s, by moonlight, executed by a local farmer and his sons. Drawn to these mysterious origins, the title of Alfie Caine’s exhibition,The Chalk Carver’s House, references the imagined interior rooms of the legendary chalk carver’s dwelling.

Throughout the exhibition, the artist has constructed fictional domestic spaces near his home of Rye that reflect and play off familiar landmarks and local mythology. Each is connected through portholes and passageways, gazing to and from the land, in and out of uncanny structures that cradle ineffable quiet moments.

A former architecture graduate, the interior setting in Caine’s works slips between a subject that holds memory and one that constructs it. Windows and doorways become stanzas that move a viewer between verse and sentiment, designing worlds that extend across canvases.

‘Nine Legs’ 2025, acrylic and vinyl on linen
All enquiries to .nyc

03/02/2025

Thanks to Keith Kettle for this heartfelt article and for publishing

There’s still no news on the future of the Rye Creative Centre (RCC) – it is due to be demolished as part of the housing development planned for the Freda Gardham old school site. Rye News has been featuring the stories of some of the artists at the centre who have been telling us about their work and their concerns for the future.

This week: Keith Kettle

“As an amateur artist I never thought I’d get the chance of working in my own studio again or being part of a community of artists which is what RCC is. When a studio was offered in 2022, I jumped and have never looked back. I know how rare spaces are and especially affordable ones.

Back in the 90s I was part of Studio Voltaire in Clapham, it was commune of artist, sculptures, theatre and film people with a desire to create. Against all odds it established itself as a successful arts organisation serving artists and the local community. Seeing certain similarities, threat of closure but one, made me think what can achieve if there’s enough people with vision!

Everyone agrees it’s a good asset to Rye, socially, culturally and economically. The will is there, the heart, the vision, and the LAND too!

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to create something special, it won’t come again.
Now I paint every day or every other day at the studio. I’m probably painting better now than ever before and that’s not down to me, it’s down to RCC, the community of artists, the encouragement, the advice, the ideas it generates.

RCC changes lives, it changed mine.

Take it away and you change nothing!

Address

New Road
Rye
TN317LS

Telephone

+441797229797

Website

http://www.ryecreativecentre.co.uk/

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The RCC was launched as a centre of creative excellence in 2009 in the decommissioned Freda Gardham School on the road to Camber. It provides a unique resource for the people of Rye and beyond. Visiting and resident artists offer a range of workshops, master-classes, talks, demonstrations and exhibitions throughout the year. For more information please visit our website www.ryecreativecentre.co.uk . Our studio holders are known collectively as the New Road Artists. This group is made up of a dynamic and exciting mix of artists from a range of backgrounds and traditions.