Penwith Gallery Studios 1-3, Reactivating the Creative Spaces

Description

The Penwith Gallery is the home of the Penwith Society of Arts in Cornwall. The Gallery, formerly an old pilchard packing factory, has a remarkable complex of buildings, including three public galleries, artists' studios, a print workshop, a sculpture courtyard, shop and archive.The Society was founded in 1949 by Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Peter Lanyon, Bernard Leach, Sven Berlin and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, amongst others. This association with so many progressive and influential artists has given the Penwith Society a unique place in British art history. A charitable company - Penwith Galleries Ltd - was created to arrange the programme of exhibitions, execute all gallery business and manage the entire complex. Today the Penwith offers a year-round programme of exhibitions by Society Members and Associates, as well as those by other artists from Cornwall and further afield. The Penwith continues to be at the forefront of presenting contemporary work of quality. Our project will involve the reconfiguration and reactivation of space currently occupied by three of our eleven artists' studios above the main gallery. The studios are situated in what was formerly St Peter's Loft, Peter Lanyon's school of painting. Studios 1 and 2 are no longer fit for purpose and have been redundant for some time. They need reboarding with additional fireproof materials, and studio 1 is in need of proper fire exit access. The two studios share a site with Studio 3 which is the long-term home of the Porthmeor Printmakers Workshop. This space is still in use as a working and teaching space at present but requires significant works in order to continue to be a viable site in the future. Boards need replacing here too and proper toilet facilities need to be installed to replace the inadequate current amenities, and the layout itself is poorly arranged with a lot of dead space which could be repurposed to better effect. We intend to reconfigure the layout across all three current studios, moving Studio 1 to the other end of the Print Workshop, building a fire corridor, moving and improving the Printmakers Workshop office space and creating a fourth studio for a new artist tenant. We propose beginning the works in December 2024 during the gallery closure and completing the works by March 2025