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Not London: 10 Exhibitions to See in the UK in August
Summer is here in full force, which gives me another reason to remind you to get out of the capital on your search for great exhibitions: London is so. Damned. Hot. If you were looking to keep cool, and you were given the option of the fiery pits of hell, or riding for the length of the Victoria Line, I say: bring on the sinning!
But have no fear, instead of standing for hours in slow-moving crowds of unimpressed school children and tourist families who fell out over breakfast but are determined to save the day before mum starts crying again, at the capital’s surprisingly poorly ventilated museums and galleries, here is your go-to list of exhibitions to see outside of London this August.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby - Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper - until 07 September
Joseph Wright is famous for many things, from his era-defining paintings of the Age of Enlightenment to his mastery of tenebrism, but the biggest thing is that he’s from Derby. It’s right there in the name. The nickname was actually given to Joseph to differentiate his works from the work of the artist Richard Wright when their paintings were on display in the same exhibitions, given that first names were rarely included in the lineups. But where’s Richard Wright now, huh? In Wright’s home town, visitors will be given a chance to see his drawings and works on paper, which are often overlooked thanks to his much more famous paintings of people doing intense shit like asphyxiating birds to death. I’ll be honest, though, that while this Joseph Wright of Derby show looks excellent, I want to equally encourage you to go to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s other show, all about Dracula and his surprising link to the city. Please watch the promo video, it’s wild.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxfordshire - Movements for Staying Alive - until 07 September
No touching, no running, no screaming. These are the rules we all silently sign up to when we enter exhibition spaces. Well, not at Modern Art Oxford this summer. Well, maybe don’t run or scream. And probably don’t assume you can touch, either. But Movements for Staying Alive is all about the importance of our bodies in the art-viewing process, and how we move when we engage with art. In MAO’s mission to knock Sight off the gallery top-spot of senses, several interactive works will be on display, finally giving Touch a look-in. With new commissions as well as historical works on show, this exhibition promises to reconnect you to your body, unlocking your connections with the artworks in the process. Sight is dead - long live touch!
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock - until 14 September
The UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art is back! A lot has changed since the Biennial was last in Liverpool: Trump’s back in the White House, basically everything is AI, and Katy Perry is an astronaut now. But some things never change, like Liverpool’s dedication to celebrating its heritage, and people from London travelling to the Biennial being surprised at “how far away the North is.” Back for its 13th edition, this year’s festival is taking over 12 venues across the city, and is called ‘BEDROCK’, referencing Liverpool’s literal geographical foundations and social history. The Walker Art Gallery, home to one of the UK’s largest art collections, will be a great space for Biennial-goers to start. But can we agree that “biennale” sounds better? Especially when said with a Scouse accent.
It’s 250 years since Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden, back at a time when being born in Covent Garden meant you had humble beginnings, rather than being the child of a Russian oligarch. To celebrate, the Holburne Museum (a beautiful Grade I listed building to the architecture enthusiasts, and Lady Danbury’s house in Bridgerton to the horny Netflix fans) is putting on a showcase of works by Turner and his contemporaries in watercolour. In the 19th century, the hip thing to do if you were an artist was to get outside and paint en plein air (just like in the 21st century, the hip thing to do if you’re an artist is to start an ambitious newsletter that you only send out twice) and watercolour palettes enabled artists to do this easily. The Holburne Museum is boasting excellent examples from some of the UK’s most beloved 19th-century artists in Impressions in Watercolour, and their café looks nice too.
Lightbox Gallery, Surrey - Andy Warhol - until 02 November
Of the five recommended exhibition lists I’ve made for gowithYamo this year, Andy Warhol has featured in three. I just can’t get enough of the little fella! Partnering up with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the Lightbox Gallery in Woking is putting on a comprehensive exhibition starring several of Warhol’s greatest hits, as well as intimate, rarely-displayed works that give you an insight into the icon’s artistic processes. It’ll also be worth going just because the Lightbox is a really lovely space, and there’s meant to be a very nice coffee spot in a canal boat on the river that runs right next to the gallery, but the one time I’ve been there, it was closed so I cannot personally vouch for its very niceness.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex - See the Sea - until 30 November
Go to Brighton! It’s a bit like London because everyone who lives in Brighton is from London, but it is otherwise lovely, and there’s no better excuse to get away to the coast than to escape August’s hellish humidity. See the Sea is a celebration of Brighton and Hove’s coastline, with artworks spanning hundreds of years. Not too much more information out about this one, so I’ve resorted to looking up some good Brighton facts to tell you instead. Did you know that it’s where ABBA won Eurovision in 1974? That’ll do.
Three hundred miles apart, like star-crossed lovers, Cornwall and Yorkshire have a past. In the mid-late 19th century, Cornwall saw droves of artists arriving (on brand new trains, invented just decades before, running with about the same frequency as they do today, given the amount of cancellations - am I right?!) to enjoy the landscape and the light reflecting off the sea. Several artists who made a name for themselves in St Ives and the surrounding villages were from Yorkshire, most famously the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made her way down West after the outbreak of World War Two with her husband Ben Nicholson (apparently they offered Piet Mondrian a lift but he didn’t fancy it). Now Leeds Art Gallery are celebrating the two regions’ shared artistic heritage, including work by contemporary artists for whom Hepworth is a major inspiration.
Dovecot Studios, Midlothian - IKEA: Magical Patterns - until 17 January 2026
IKEA is very good at many things, including but not limited to: meatballs, testing marriages with flat pack furniture, and a day out for when relatives are visiting from out of town. But what they do particularly well is pattern. Dovecot Studios is spending the second half of 2025 celebrating 60 years of IKEA’s innovative textile design with Magical Patterns. All things bright and beautiful are going on display, from the pioneering prints of the Swedish collective 10-gruppen who started it all, to more recent collaborations with iconic contemporary designers like Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko. So, pop on your ROCKÅN, grab your keys from your KALLAX, and don’t forget to turn off your TÅGARP, and head to Edinburgh for some Swedish celebration this summer.
I couldn’t wait for August to roll around to include this show, which I have been itching to share for months. If you are in Exeter, I beg you to see this display all about staplers. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery regularly puts on its What Do You Collect? exhibits, loaning objects from a local collector of something niche (for the first half of 2025, it was Mingei pottery, but before then, RAMM had showcased cameras, oil cans, and handkerchiefs). Renny, whose collection of staplers is finally having its moment in the sun, began collecting during the pandemic when they were forced to work from home and were lent an old stapler by a colleague. Now boasting a collection of dozens of staplers, ranging from the mid- to late 20th century and including models from the UK and abroad, Renny is giving us the opportunity of a lifetime: let’s spend some time looking at loads of staplers.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex - It Takes a Village - until 01 February 2026
Ditchling is such a beautiful village, it makes you a bit cross. At the heart of the village - inside what is essentially a moat of very nice gift shops selling very nice hand cream and very nice restaurants selling very nice dinners - is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, a fantastic arts venue dedicated to the history of the village as a centre for makers in the early 20th century. A bit like Charleston - fewer than 15 miles away - Ditchling, set amongst the beautiful South Downs, found itself an attractive location for artists at the turn of the century (I like to think of both locations like warring football teams, made up of creative poshos). It Takes a Village examines the museum and village’s artistic heritage (tackling some tricky themes - what with Eric Gill being the founding father of the whole artistic group - with real nuance and openness), putting on display several works from their collection of over 20,000 objects which have never been exhibited before, as well as displaying work by local contemporary artists.
Not London: 10 Exhibitions to See in the UK in August
Summer is here in full force, which gives me another reason to remind you to get out of the capital on your search for great exhibitions: London is so. Damned. Hot. If you were looking to keep cool, and you were given the option of the fiery pits of hell, or riding for the length of the Victoria Line, I say: bring on the sinning!
But have no fear, instead of standing for hours in slow-moving crowds of unimpressed school children and tourist families who fell out over breakfast but are determined to save the day before mum starts crying again, at the capital’s surprisingly poorly ventilated museums and galleries, here is your go-to list of exhibitions to see outside of London this August.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby - Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper - until 07 September
Joseph Wright is famous for many things, from his era-defining paintings of the Age of Enlightenment to his mastery of tenebrism, but the biggest thing is that he’s from Derby. It’s right there in the name. The nickname was actually given to Joseph to differentiate his works from the work of the artist Richard Wright when their paintings were on display in the same exhibitions, given that first names were rarely included in the lineups. But where’s Richard Wright now, huh? In Wright’s home town, visitors will be given a chance to see his drawings and works on paper, which are often overlooked thanks to his much more famous paintings of people doing intense shit like asphyxiating birds to death. I’ll be honest, though, that while this Joseph Wright of Derby show looks excellent, I want to equally encourage you to go to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s other show, all about Dracula and his surprising link to the city. Please watch the promo video, it’s wild.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxfordshire - Movements for Staying Alive - until 07 September
No touching, no running, no screaming. These are the rules we all silently sign up to when we enter exhibition spaces. Well, not at Modern Art Oxford this summer. Well, maybe don’t run or scream. And probably don’t assume you can touch, either. But Movements for Staying Alive is all about the importance of our bodies in the art-viewing process, and how we move when we engage with art. In MAO’s mission to knock Sight off the gallery top-spot of senses, several interactive works will be on display, finally giving Touch a look-in. With new commissions as well as historical works on show, this exhibition promises to reconnect you to your body, unlocking your connections with the artworks in the process. Sight is dead - long live touch!
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock - until 14 September
The UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art is back! A lot has changed since the Biennial was last in Liverpool: Trump’s back in the White House, basically everything is AI, and Katy Perry is an astronaut now. But some things never change, like Liverpool’s dedication to celebrating its heritage, and people from London travelling to the Biennial being surprised at “how far away the North is.” Back for its 13th edition, this year’s festival is taking over 12 venues across the city, and is called ‘BEDROCK’, referencing Liverpool’s literal geographical foundations and social history. The Walker Art Gallery, home to one of the UK’s largest art collections, will be a great space for Biennial-goers to start. But can we agree that “biennale” sounds better? Especially when said with a Scouse accent.
It’s 250 years since Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden, back at a time when being born in Covent Garden meant you had humble beginnings, rather than being the child of a Russian oligarch. To celebrate, the Holburne Museum (a beautiful Grade I listed building to the architecture enthusiasts, and Lady Danbury’s house in Bridgerton to the horny Netflix fans) is putting on a showcase of works by Turner and his contemporaries in watercolour. In the 19th century, the hip thing to do if you were an artist was to get outside and paint en plein air (just like in the 21st century, the hip thing to do if you’re an artist is to start an ambitious newsletter that you only send out twice) and watercolour palettes enabled artists to do this easily. The Holburne Museum is boasting excellent examples from some of the UK’s most beloved 19th-century artists in Impressions in Watercolour, and their café looks nice too.
Lightbox Gallery, Surrey - Andy Warhol - until 02 November
Of the five recommended exhibition lists I’ve made for gowithYamo this year, Andy Warhol has featured in three. I just can’t get enough of the little fella! Partnering up with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the Lightbox Gallery in Woking is putting on a comprehensive exhibition starring several of Warhol’s greatest hits, as well as intimate, rarely-displayed works that give you an insight into the icon’s artistic processes. It’ll also be worth going just because the Lightbox is a really lovely space, and there’s meant to be a very nice coffee spot in a canal boat on the river that runs right next to the gallery, but the one time I’ve been there, it was closed so I cannot personally vouch for its very niceness.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex - See the Sea - until 30 November
Go to Brighton! It’s a bit like London because everyone who lives in Brighton is from London, but it is otherwise lovely, and there’s no better excuse to get away to the coast than to escape August’s hellish humidity. See the Sea is a celebration of Brighton and Hove’s coastline, with artworks spanning hundreds of years. Not too much more information out about this one, so I’ve resorted to looking up some good Brighton facts to tell you instead. Did you know that it’s where ABBA won Eurovision in 1974? That’ll do.
Three hundred miles apart, like star-crossed lovers, Cornwall and Yorkshire have a past. In the mid-late 19th century, Cornwall saw droves of artists arriving (on brand new trains, invented just decades before, running with about the same frequency as they do today, given the amount of cancellations - am I right?!) to enjoy the landscape and the light reflecting off the sea. Several artists who made a name for themselves in St Ives and the surrounding villages were from Yorkshire, most famously the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made her way down West after the outbreak of World War Two with her husband Ben Nicholson (apparently they offered Piet Mondrian a lift but he didn’t fancy it). Now Leeds Art Gallery are celebrating the two regions’ shared artistic heritage, including work by contemporary artists for whom Hepworth is a major inspiration.
Dovecot Studios, Midlothian - IKEA: Magical Patterns - until 17 January 2026
IKEA is very good at many things, including but not limited to: meatballs, testing marriages with flat pack furniture, and a day out for when relatives are visiting from out of town. But what they do particularly well is pattern. Dovecot Studios is spending the second half of 2025 celebrating 60 years of IKEA’s innovative textile design with Magical Patterns. All things bright and beautiful are going on display, from the pioneering prints of the Swedish collective 10-gruppen who started it all, to more recent collaborations with iconic contemporary designers like Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko. So, pop on your ROCKÅN, grab your keys from your KALLAX, and don’t forget to turn off your TÅGARP, and head to Edinburgh for some Swedish celebration this summer.
I couldn’t wait for August to roll around to include this show, which I have been itching to share for months. If you are in Exeter, I beg you to see this display all about staplers. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery regularly puts on its What Do You Collect? exhibits, loaning objects from a local collector of something niche (for the first half of 2025, it was Mingei pottery, but before then, RAMM had showcased cameras, oil cans, and handkerchiefs). Renny, whose collection of staplers is finally having its moment in the sun, began collecting during the pandemic when they were forced to work from home and were lent an old stapler by a colleague. Now boasting a collection of dozens of staplers, ranging from the mid- to late 20th century and including models from the UK and abroad, Renny is giving us the opportunity of a lifetime: let’s spend some time looking at loads of staplers.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex - It Takes a Village - until 01 February 2026
Ditchling is such a beautiful village, it makes you a bit cross. At the heart of the village - inside what is essentially a moat of very nice gift shops selling very nice hand cream and very nice restaurants selling very nice dinners - is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, a fantastic arts venue dedicated to the history of the village as a centre for makers in the early 20th century. A bit like Charleston - fewer than 15 miles away - Ditchling, set amongst the beautiful South Downs, found itself an attractive location for artists at the turn of the century (I like to think of both locations like warring football teams, made up of creative poshos). It Takes a Village examines the museum and village’s artistic heritage (tackling some tricky themes - what with Eric Gill being the founding father of the whole artistic group - with real nuance and openness), putting on display several works from their collection of over 20,000 objects which have never been exhibited before, as well as displaying work by local contemporary artists.
Not London: 10 Exhibitions to See in the UK in August
Summer is here in full force, which gives me another reason to remind you to get out of the capital on your search for great exhibitions: London is so. Damned. Hot. If you were looking to keep cool, and you were given the option of the fiery pits of hell, or riding for the length of the Victoria Line, I say: bring on the sinning!
But have no fear, instead of standing for hours in slow-moving crowds of unimpressed school children and tourist families who fell out over breakfast but are determined to save the day before mum starts crying again, at the capital’s surprisingly poorly ventilated museums and galleries, here is your go-to list of exhibitions to see outside of London this August.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby - Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper - until 07 September
Joseph Wright is famous for many things, from his era-defining paintings of the Age of Enlightenment to his mastery of tenebrism, but the biggest thing is that he’s from Derby. It’s right there in the name. The nickname was actually given to Joseph to differentiate his works from the work of the artist Richard Wright when their paintings were on display in the same exhibitions, given that first names were rarely included in the lineups. But where’s Richard Wright now, huh? In Wright’s home town, visitors will be given a chance to see his drawings and works on paper, which are often overlooked thanks to his much more famous paintings of people doing intense shit like asphyxiating birds to death. I’ll be honest, though, that while this Joseph Wright of Derby show looks excellent, I want to equally encourage you to go to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s other show, all about Dracula and his surprising link to the city. Please watch the promo video, it’s wild.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxfordshire - Movements for Staying Alive - until 07 September
No touching, no running, no screaming. These are the rules we all silently sign up to when we enter exhibition spaces. Well, not at Modern Art Oxford this summer. Well, maybe don’t run or scream. And probably don’t assume you can touch, either. But Movements for Staying Alive is all about the importance of our bodies in the art-viewing process, and how we move when we engage with art. In MAO’s mission to knock Sight off the gallery top-spot of senses, several interactive works will be on display, finally giving Touch a look-in. With new commissions as well as historical works on show, this exhibition promises to reconnect you to your body, unlocking your connections with the artworks in the process. Sight is dead - long live touch!
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock - until 14 September
The UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art is back! A lot has changed since the Biennial was last in Liverpool: Trump’s back in the White House, basically everything is AI, and Katy Perry is an astronaut now. But some things never change, like Liverpool’s dedication to celebrating its heritage, and people from London travelling to the Biennial being surprised at “how far away the North is.” Back for its 13th edition, this year’s festival is taking over 12 venues across the city, and is called ‘BEDROCK’, referencing Liverpool’s literal geographical foundations and social history. The Walker Art Gallery, home to one of the UK’s largest art collections, will be a great space for Biennial-goers to start. But can we agree that “biennale” sounds better? Especially when said with a Scouse accent.
It’s 250 years since Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden, back at a time when being born in Covent Garden meant you had humble beginnings, rather than being the child of a Russian oligarch. To celebrate, the Holburne Museum (a beautiful Grade I listed building to the architecture enthusiasts, and Lady Danbury’s house in Bridgerton to the horny Netflix fans) is putting on a showcase of works by Turner and his contemporaries in watercolour. In the 19th century, the hip thing to do if you were an artist was to get outside and paint en plein air (just like in the 21st century, the hip thing to do if you’re an artist is to start an ambitious newsletter that you only send out twice) and watercolour palettes enabled artists to do this easily. The Holburne Museum is boasting excellent examples from some of the UK’s most beloved 19th-century artists in Impressions in Watercolour, and their café looks nice too.
Lightbox Gallery, Surrey - Andy Warhol - until 02 November
Of the five recommended exhibition lists I’ve made for gowithYamo this year, Andy Warhol has featured in three. I just can’t get enough of the little fella! Partnering up with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the Lightbox Gallery in Woking is putting on a comprehensive exhibition starring several of Warhol’s greatest hits, as well as intimate, rarely-displayed works that give you an insight into the icon’s artistic processes. It’ll also be worth going just because the Lightbox is a really lovely space, and there’s meant to be a very nice coffee spot in a canal boat on the river that runs right next to the gallery, but the one time I’ve been there, it was closed so I cannot personally vouch for its very niceness.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex - See the Sea - until 30 November
Go to Brighton! It’s a bit like London because everyone who lives in Brighton is from London, but it is otherwise lovely, and there’s no better excuse to get away to the coast than to escape August’s hellish humidity. See the Sea is a celebration of Brighton and Hove’s coastline, with artworks spanning hundreds of years. Not too much more information out about this one, so I’ve resorted to looking up some good Brighton facts to tell you instead. Did you know that it’s where ABBA won Eurovision in 1974? That’ll do.
Three hundred miles apart, like star-crossed lovers, Cornwall and Yorkshire have a past. In the mid-late 19th century, Cornwall saw droves of artists arriving (on brand new trains, invented just decades before, running with about the same frequency as they do today, given the amount of cancellations - am I right?!) to enjoy the landscape and the light reflecting off the sea. Several artists who made a name for themselves in St Ives and the surrounding villages were from Yorkshire, most famously the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made her way down West after the outbreak of World War Two with her husband Ben Nicholson (apparently they offered Piet Mondrian a lift but he didn’t fancy it). Now Leeds Art Gallery are celebrating the two regions’ shared artistic heritage, including work by contemporary artists for whom Hepworth is a major inspiration.
Dovecot Studios, Midlothian - IKEA: Magical Patterns - until 17 January 2026
IKEA is very good at many things, including but not limited to: meatballs, testing marriages with flat pack furniture, and a day out for when relatives are visiting from out of town. But what they do particularly well is pattern. Dovecot Studios is spending the second half of 2025 celebrating 60 years of IKEA’s innovative textile design with Magical Patterns. All things bright and beautiful are going on display, from the pioneering prints of the Swedish collective 10-gruppen who started it all, to more recent collaborations with iconic contemporary designers like Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko. So, pop on your ROCKÅN, grab your keys from your KALLAX, and don’t forget to turn off your TÅGARP, and head to Edinburgh for some Swedish celebration this summer.
I couldn’t wait for August to roll around to include this show, which I have been itching to share for months. If you are in Exeter, I beg you to see this display all about staplers. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery regularly puts on its What Do You Collect? exhibits, loaning objects from a local collector of something niche (for the first half of 2025, it was Mingei pottery, but before then, RAMM had showcased cameras, oil cans, and handkerchiefs). Renny, whose collection of staplers is finally having its moment in the sun, began collecting during the pandemic when they were forced to work from home and were lent an old stapler by a colleague. Now boasting a collection of dozens of staplers, ranging from the mid- to late 20th century and including models from the UK and abroad, Renny is giving us the opportunity of a lifetime: let’s spend some time looking at loads of staplers.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex - It Takes a Village - until 01 February 2026
Ditchling is such a beautiful village, it makes you a bit cross. At the heart of the village - inside what is essentially a moat of very nice gift shops selling very nice hand cream and very nice restaurants selling very nice dinners - is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, a fantastic arts venue dedicated to the history of the village as a centre for makers in the early 20th century. A bit like Charleston - fewer than 15 miles away - Ditchling, set amongst the beautiful South Downs, found itself an attractive location for artists at the turn of the century (I like to think of both locations like warring football teams, made up of creative poshos). It Takes a Village examines the museum and village’s artistic heritage (tackling some tricky themes - what with Eric Gill being the founding father of the whole artistic group - with real nuance and openness), putting on display several works from their collection of over 20,000 objects which have never been exhibited before, as well as displaying work by local contemporary artists.
Not London: 10 Exhibitions to See in the UK in August
Summer is here in full force, which gives me another reason to remind you to get out of the capital on your search for great exhibitions: London is so. Damned. Hot. If you were looking to keep cool, and you were given the option of the fiery pits of hell, or riding for the length of the Victoria Line, I say: bring on the sinning!
But have no fear, instead of standing for hours in slow-moving crowds of unimpressed school children and tourist families who fell out over breakfast but are determined to save the day before mum starts crying again, at the capital’s surprisingly poorly ventilated museums and galleries, here is your go-to list of exhibitions to see outside of London this August.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby - Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper - until 07 September
Joseph Wright is famous for many things, from his era-defining paintings of the Age of Enlightenment to his mastery of tenebrism, but the biggest thing is that he’s from Derby. It’s right there in the name. The nickname was actually given to Joseph to differentiate his works from the work of the artist Richard Wright when their paintings were on display in the same exhibitions, given that first names were rarely included in the lineups. But where’s Richard Wright now, huh? In Wright’s home town, visitors will be given a chance to see his drawings and works on paper, which are often overlooked thanks to his much more famous paintings of people doing intense shit like asphyxiating birds to death. I’ll be honest, though, that while this Joseph Wright of Derby show looks excellent, I want to equally encourage you to go to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s other show, all about Dracula and his surprising link to the city. Please watch the promo video, it’s wild.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxfordshire - Movements for Staying Alive - until 07 September
No touching, no running, no screaming. These are the rules we all silently sign up to when we enter exhibition spaces. Well, not at Modern Art Oxford this summer. Well, maybe don’t run or scream. And probably don’t assume you can touch, either. But Movements for Staying Alive is all about the importance of our bodies in the art-viewing process, and how we move when we engage with art. In MAO’s mission to knock Sight off the gallery top-spot of senses, several interactive works will be on display, finally giving Touch a look-in. With new commissions as well as historical works on show, this exhibition promises to reconnect you to your body, unlocking your connections with the artworks in the process. Sight is dead - long live touch!
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock - until 14 September
The UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art is back! A lot has changed since the Biennial was last in Liverpool: Trump’s back in the White House, basically everything is AI, and Katy Perry is an astronaut now. But some things never change, like Liverpool’s dedication to celebrating its heritage, and people from London travelling to the Biennial being surprised at “how far away the North is.” Back for its 13th edition, this year’s festival is taking over 12 venues across the city, and is called ‘BEDROCK’, referencing Liverpool’s literal geographical foundations and social history. The Walker Art Gallery, home to one of the UK’s largest art collections, will be a great space for Biennial-goers to start. But can we agree that “biennale” sounds better? Especially when said with a Scouse accent.
It’s 250 years since Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden, back at a time when being born in Covent Garden meant you had humble beginnings, rather than being the child of a Russian oligarch. To celebrate, the Holburne Museum (a beautiful Grade I listed building to the architecture enthusiasts, and Lady Danbury’s house in Bridgerton to the horny Netflix fans) is putting on a showcase of works by Turner and his contemporaries in watercolour. In the 19th century, the hip thing to do if you were an artist was to get outside and paint en plein air (just like in the 21st century, the hip thing to do if you’re an artist is to start an ambitious newsletter that you only send out twice) and watercolour palettes enabled artists to do this easily. The Holburne Museum is boasting excellent examples from some of the UK’s most beloved 19th-century artists in Impressions in Watercolour, and their café looks nice too.
Lightbox Gallery, Surrey - Andy Warhol - until 02 November
Of the five recommended exhibition lists I’ve made for gowithYamo this year, Andy Warhol has featured in three. I just can’t get enough of the little fella! Partnering up with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the Lightbox Gallery in Woking is putting on a comprehensive exhibition starring several of Warhol’s greatest hits, as well as intimate, rarely-displayed works that give you an insight into the icon’s artistic processes. It’ll also be worth going just because the Lightbox is a really lovely space, and there’s meant to be a very nice coffee spot in a canal boat on the river that runs right next to the gallery, but the one time I’ve been there, it was closed so I cannot personally vouch for its very niceness.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex - See the Sea - until 30 November
Go to Brighton! It’s a bit like London because everyone who lives in Brighton is from London, but it is otherwise lovely, and there’s no better excuse to get away to the coast than to escape August’s hellish humidity. See the Sea is a celebration of Brighton and Hove’s coastline, with artworks spanning hundreds of years. Not too much more information out about this one, so I’ve resorted to looking up some good Brighton facts to tell you instead. Did you know that it’s where ABBA won Eurovision in 1974? That’ll do.
Three hundred miles apart, like star-crossed lovers, Cornwall and Yorkshire have a past. In the mid-late 19th century, Cornwall saw droves of artists arriving (on brand new trains, invented just decades before, running with about the same frequency as they do today, given the amount of cancellations - am I right?!) to enjoy the landscape and the light reflecting off the sea. Several artists who made a name for themselves in St Ives and the surrounding villages were from Yorkshire, most famously the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made her way down West after the outbreak of World War Two with her husband Ben Nicholson (apparently they offered Piet Mondrian a lift but he didn’t fancy it). Now Leeds Art Gallery are celebrating the two regions’ shared artistic heritage, including work by contemporary artists for whom Hepworth is a major inspiration.
Dovecot Studios, Midlothian - IKEA: Magical Patterns - until 17 January 2026
IKEA is very good at many things, including but not limited to: meatballs, testing marriages with flat pack furniture, and a day out for when relatives are visiting from out of town. But what they do particularly well is pattern. Dovecot Studios is spending the second half of 2025 celebrating 60 years of IKEA’s innovative textile design with Magical Patterns. All things bright and beautiful are going on display, from the pioneering prints of the Swedish collective 10-gruppen who started it all, to more recent collaborations with iconic contemporary designers like Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko. So, pop on your ROCKÅN, grab your keys from your KALLAX, and don’t forget to turn off your TÅGARP, and head to Edinburgh for some Swedish celebration this summer.
I couldn’t wait for August to roll around to include this show, which I have been itching to share for months. If you are in Exeter, I beg you to see this display all about staplers. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery regularly puts on its What Do You Collect? exhibits, loaning objects from a local collector of something niche (for the first half of 2025, it was Mingei pottery, but before then, RAMM had showcased cameras, oil cans, and handkerchiefs). Renny, whose collection of staplers is finally having its moment in the sun, began collecting during the pandemic when they were forced to work from home and were lent an old stapler by a colleague. Now boasting a collection of dozens of staplers, ranging from the mid- to late 20th century and including models from the UK and abroad, Renny is giving us the opportunity of a lifetime: let’s spend some time looking at loads of staplers.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex - It Takes a Village - until 01 February 2026
Ditchling is such a beautiful village, it makes you a bit cross. At the heart of the village - inside what is essentially a moat of very nice gift shops selling very nice hand cream and very nice restaurants selling very nice dinners - is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, a fantastic arts venue dedicated to the history of the village as a centre for makers in the early 20th century. A bit like Charleston - fewer than 15 miles away - Ditchling, set amongst the beautiful South Downs, found itself an attractive location for artists at the turn of the century (I like to think of both locations like warring football teams, made up of creative poshos). It Takes a Village examines the museum and village’s artistic heritage (tackling some tricky themes - what with Eric Gill being the founding father of the whole artistic group - with real nuance and openness), putting on display several works from their collection of over 20,000 objects which have never been exhibited before, as well as displaying work by local contemporary artists.
Not London: 10 Exhibitions to See in the UK in August
Summer is here in full force, which gives me another reason to remind you to get out of the capital on your search for great exhibitions: London is so. Damned. Hot. If you were looking to keep cool, and you were given the option of the fiery pits of hell, or riding for the length of the Victoria Line, I say: bring on the sinning!
But have no fear, instead of standing for hours in slow-moving crowds of unimpressed school children and tourist families who fell out over breakfast but are determined to save the day before mum starts crying again, at the capital’s surprisingly poorly ventilated museums and galleries, here is your go-to list of exhibitions to see outside of London this August.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby - Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper - until 07 September
Joseph Wright is famous for many things, from his era-defining paintings of the Age of Enlightenment to his mastery of tenebrism, but the biggest thing is that he’s from Derby. It’s right there in the name. The nickname was actually given to Joseph to differentiate his works from the work of the artist Richard Wright when their paintings were on display in the same exhibitions, given that first names were rarely included in the lineups. But where’s Richard Wright now, huh? In Wright’s home town, visitors will be given a chance to see his drawings and works on paper, which are often overlooked thanks to his much more famous paintings of people doing intense shit like asphyxiating birds to death. I’ll be honest, though, that while this Joseph Wright of Derby show looks excellent, I want to equally encourage you to go to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s other show, all about Dracula and his surprising link to the city. Please watch the promo video, it’s wild.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxfordshire - Movements for Staying Alive - until 07 September
No touching, no running, no screaming. These are the rules we all silently sign up to when we enter exhibition spaces. Well, not at Modern Art Oxford this summer. Well, maybe don’t run or scream. And probably don’t assume you can touch, either. But Movements for Staying Alive is all about the importance of our bodies in the art-viewing process, and how we move when we engage with art. In MAO’s mission to knock Sight off the gallery top-spot of senses, several interactive works will be on display, finally giving Touch a look-in. With new commissions as well as historical works on show, this exhibition promises to reconnect you to your body, unlocking your connections with the artworks in the process. Sight is dead - long live touch!
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock - until 14 September
The UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art is back! A lot has changed since the Biennial was last in Liverpool: Trump’s back in the White House, basically everything is AI, and Katy Perry is an astronaut now. But some things never change, like Liverpool’s dedication to celebrating its heritage, and people from London travelling to the Biennial being surprised at “how far away the North is.” Back for its 13th edition, this year’s festival is taking over 12 venues across the city, and is called ‘BEDROCK’, referencing Liverpool’s literal geographical foundations and social history. The Walker Art Gallery, home to one of the UK’s largest art collections, will be a great space for Biennial-goers to start. But can we agree that “biennale” sounds better? Especially when said with a Scouse accent.
It’s 250 years since Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden, back at a time when being born in Covent Garden meant you had humble beginnings, rather than being the child of a Russian oligarch. To celebrate, the Holburne Museum (a beautiful Grade I listed building to the architecture enthusiasts, and Lady Danbury’s house in Bridgerton to the horny Netflix fans) is putting on a showcase of works by Turner and his contemporaries in watercolour. In the 19th century, the hip thing to do if you were an artist was to get outside and paint en plein air (just like in the 21st century, the hip thing to do if you’re an artist is to start an ambitious newsletter that you only send out twice) and watercolour palettes enabled artists to do this easily. The Holburne Museum is boasting excellent examples from some of the UK’s most beloved 19th-century artists in Impressions in Watercolour, and their café looks nice too.
Lightbox Gallery, Surrey - Andy Warhol - until 02 November
Of the five recommended exhibition lists I’ve made for gowithYamo this year, Andy Warhol has featured in three. I just can’t get enough of the little fella! Partnering up with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the Lightbox Gallery in Woking is putting on a comprehensive exhibition starring several of Warhol’s greatest hits, as well as intimate, rarely-displayed works that give you an insight into the icon’s artistic processes. It’ll also be worth going just because the Lightbox is a really lovely space, and there’s meant to be a very nice coffee spot in a canal boat on the river that runs right next to the gallery, but the one time I’ve been there, it was closed so I cannot personally vouch for its very niceness.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex - See the Sea - until 30 November
Go to Brighton! It’s a bit like London because everyone who lives in Brighton is from London, but it is otherwise lovely, and there’s no better excuse to get away to the coast than to escape August’s hellish humidity. See the Sea is a celebration of Brighton and Hove’s coastline, with artworks spanning hundreds of years. Not too much more information out about this one, so I’ve resorted to looking up some good Brighton facts to tell you instead. Did you know that it’s where ABBA won Eurovision in 1974? That’ll do.
Three hundred miles apart, like star-crossed lovers, Cornwall and Yorkshire have a past. In the mid-late 19th century, Cornwall saw droves of artists arriving (on brand new trains, invented just decades before, running with about the same frequency as they do today, given the amount of cancellations - am I right?!) to enjoy the landscape and the light reflecting off the sea. Several artists who made a name for themselves in St Ives and the surrounding villages were from Yorkshire, most famously the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made her way down West after the outbreak of World War Two with her husband Ben Nicholson (apparently they offered Piet Mondrian a lift but he didn’t fancy it). Now Leeds Art Gallery are celebrating the two regions’ shared artistic heritage, including work by contemporary artists for whom Hepworth is a major inspiration.
Dovecot Studios, Midlothian - IKEA: Magical Patterns - until 17 January 2026
IKEA is very good at many things, including but not limited to: meatballs, testing marriages with flat pack furniture, and a day out for when relatives are visiting from out of town. But what they do particularly well is pattern. Dovecot Studios is spending the second half of 2025 celebrating 60 years of IKEA’s innovative textile design with Magical Patterns. All things bright and beautiful are going on display, from the pioneering prints of the Swedish collective 10-gruppen who started it all, to more recent collaborations with iconic contemporary designers like Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko. So, pop on your ROCKÅN, grab your keys from your KALLAX, and don’t forget to turn off your TÅGARP, and head to Edinburgh for some Swedish celebration this summer.
I couldn’t wait for August to roll around to include this show, which I have been itching to share for months. If you are in Exeter, I beg you to see this display all about staplers. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery regularly puts on its What Do You Collect? exhibits, loaning objects from a local collector of something niche (for the first half of 2025, it was Mingei pottery, but before then, RAMM had showcased cameras, oil cans, and handkerchiefs). Renny, whose collection of staplers is finally having its moment in the sun, began collecting during the pandemic when they were forced to work from home and were lent an old stapler by a colleague. Now boasting a collection of dozens of staplers, ranging from the mid- to late 20th century and including models from the UK and abroad, Renny is giving us the opportunity of a lifetime: let’s spend some time looking at loads of staplers.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex - It Takes a Village - until 01 February 2026
Ditchling is such a beautiful village, it makes you a bit cross. At the heart of the village - inside what is essentially a moat of very nice gift shops selling very nice hand cream and very nice restaurants selling very nice dinners - is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, a fantastic arts venue dedicated to the history of the village as a centre for makers in the early 20th century. A bit like Charleston - fewer than 15 miles away - Ditchling, set amongst the beautiful South Downs, found itself an attractive location for artists at the turn of the century (I like to think of both locations like warring football teams, made up of creative poshos). It Takes a Village examines the museum and village’s artistic heritage (tackling some tricky themes - what with Eric Gill being the founding father of the whole artistic group - with real nuance and openness), putting on display several works from their collection of over 20,000 objects which have never been exhibited before, as well as displaying work by local contemporary artists.
Not London: 10 Exhibitions to See in the UK in August
Summer is here in full force, which gives me another reason to remind you to get out of the capital on your search for great exhibitions: London is so. Damned. Hot. If you were looking to keep cool, and you were given the option of the fiery pits of hell, or riding for the length of the Victoria Line, I say: bring on the sinning!
But have no fear, instead of standing for hours in slow-moving crowds of unimpressed school children and tourist families who fell out over breakfast but are determined to save the day before mum starts crying again, at the capital’s surprisingly poorly ventilated museums and galleries, here is your go-to list of exhibitions to see outside of London this August.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby - Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper - until 07 September
Joseph Wright is famous for many things, from his era-defining paintings of the Age of Enlightenment to his mastery of tenebrism, but the biggest thing is that he’s from Derby. It’s right there in the name. The nickname was actually given to Joseph to differentiate his works from the work of the artist Richard Wright when their paintings were on display in the same exhibitions, given that first names were rarely included in the lineups. But where’s Richard Wright now, huh? In Wright’s home town, visitors will be given a chance to see his drawings and works on paper, which are often overlooked thanks to his much more famous paintings of people doing intense shit like asphyxiating birds to death. I’ll be honest, though, that while this Joseph Wright of Derby show looks excellent, I want to equally encourage you to go to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s other show, all about Dracula and his surprising link to the city. Please watch the promo video, it’s wild.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxfordshire - Movements for Staying Alive - until 07 September
No touching, no running, no screaming. These are the rules we all silently sign up to when we enter exhibition spaces. Well, not at Modern Art Oxford this summer. Well, maybe don’t run or scream. And probably don’t assume you can touch, either. But Movements for Staying Alive is all about the importance of our bodies in the art-viewing process, and how we move when we engage with art. In MAO’s mission to knock Sight off the gallery top-spot of senses, several interactive works will be on display, finally giving Touch a look-in. With new commissions as well as historical works on show, this exhibition promises to reconnect you to your body, unlocking your connections with the artworks in the process. Sight is dead - long live touch!
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock - until 14 September
The UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art is back! A lot has changed since the Biennial was last in Liverpool: Trump’s back in the White House, basically everything is AI, and Katy Perry is an astronaut now. But some things never change, like Liverpool’s dedication to celebrating its heritage, and people from London travelling to the Biennial being surprised at “how far away the North is.” Back for its 13th edition, this year’s festival is taking over 12 venues across the city, and is called ‘BEDROCK’, referencing Liverpool’s literal geographical foundations and social history. The Walker Art Gallery, home to one of the UK’s largest art collections, will be a great space for Biennial-goers to start. But can we agree that “biennale” sounds better? Especially when said with a Scouse accent.
It’s 250 years since Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden, back at a time when being born in Covent Garden meant you had humble beginnings, rather than being the child of a Russian oligarch. To celebrate, the Holburne Museum (a beautiful Grade I listed building to the architecture enthusiasts, and Lady Danbury’s house in Bridgerton to the horny Netflix fans) is putting on a showcase of works by Turner and his contemporaries in watercolour. In the 19th century, the hip thing to do if you were an artist was to get outside and paint en plein air (just like in the 21st century, the hip thing to do if you’re an artist is to start an ambitious newsletter that you only send out twice) and watercolour palettes enabled artists to do this easily. The Holburne Museum is boasting excellent examples from some of the UK’s most beloved 19th-century artists in Impressions in Watercolour, and their café looks nice too.
Lightbox Gallery, Surrey - Andy Warhol - until 02 November
Of the five recommended exhibition lists I’ve made for gowithYamo this year, Andy Warhol has featured in three. I just can’t get enough of the little fella! Partnering up with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the Lightbox Gallery in Woking is putting on a comprehensive exhibition starring several of Warhol’s greatest hits, as well as intimate, rarely-displayed works that give you an insight into the icon’s artistic processes. It’ll also be worth going just because the Lightbox is a really lovely space, and there’s meant to be a very nice coffee spot in a canal boat on the river that runs right next to the gallery, but the one time I’ve been there, it was closed so I cannot personally vouch for its very niceness.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex - See the Sea - until 30 November
Go to Brighton! It’s a bit like London because everyone who lives in Brighton is from London, but it is otherwise lovely, and there’s no better excuse to get away to the coast than to escape August’s hellish humidity. See the Sea is a celebration of Brighton and Hove’s coastline, with artworks spanning hundreds of years. Not too much more information out about this one, so I’ve resorted to looking up some good Brighton facts to tell you instead. Did you know that it’s where ABBA won Eurovision in 1974? That’ll do.
Three hundred miles apart, like star-crossed lovers, Cornwall and Yorkshire have a past. In the mid-late 19th century, Cornwall saw droves of artists arriving (on brand new trains, invented just decades before, running with about the same frequency as they do today, given the amount of cancellations - am I right?!) to enjoy the landscape and the light reflecting off the sea. Several artists who made a name for themselves in St Ives and the surrounding villages were from Yorkshire, most famously the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made her way down West after the outbreak of World War Two with her husband Ben Nicholson (apparently they offered Piet Mondrian a lift but he didn’t fancy it). Now Leeds Art Gallery are celebrating the two regions’ shared artistic heritage, including work by contemporary artists for whom Hepworth is a major inspiration.
Dovecot Studios, Midlothian - IKEA: Magical Patterns - until 17 January 2026
IKEA is very good at many things, including but not limited to: meatballs, testing marriages with flat pack furniture, and a day out for when relatives are visiting from out of town. But what they do particularly well is pattern. Dovecot Studios is spending the second half of 2025 celebrating 60 years of IKEA’s innovative textile design with Magical Patterns. All things bright and beautiful are going on display, from the pioneering prints of the Swedish collective 10-gruppen who started it all, to more recent collaborations with iconic contemporary designers like Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko. So, pop on your ROCKÅN, grab your keys from your KALLAX, and don’t forget to turn off your TÅGARP, and head to Edinburgh for some Swedish celebration this summer.
I couldn’t wait for August to roll around to include this show, which I have been itching to share for months. If you are in Exeter, I beg you to see this display all about staplers. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery regularly puts on its What Do You Collect? exhibits, loaning objects from a local collector of something niche (for the first half of 2025, it was Mingei pottery, but before then, RAMM had showcased cameras, oil cans, and handkerchiefs). Renny, whose collection of staplers is finally having its moment in the sun, began collecting during the pandemic when they were forced to work from home and were lent an old stapler by a colleague. Now boasting a collection of dozens of staplers, ranging from the mid- to late 20th century and including models from the UK and abroad, Renny is giving us the opportunity of a lifetime: let’s spend some time looking at loads of staplers.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex - It Takes a Village - until 01 February 2026
Ditchling is such a beautiful village, it makes you a bit cross. At the heart of the village - inside what is essentially a moat of very nice gift shops selling very nice hand cream and very nice restaurants selling very nice dinners - is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, a fantastic arts venue dedicated to the history of the village as a centre for makers in the early 20th century. A bit like Charleston - fewer than 15 miles away - Ditchling, set amongst the beautiful South Downs, found itself an attractive location for artists at the turn of the century (I like to think of both locations like warring football teams, made up of creative poshos). It Takes a Village examines the museum and village’s artistic heritage (tackling some tricky themes - what with Eric Gill being the founding father of the whole artistic group - with real nuance and openness), putting on display several works from their collection of over 20,000 objects which have never been exhibited before, as well as displaying work by local contemporary artists.
Not London: 10 Exhibitions to See in the UK in August
Summer is here in full force, which gives me another reason to remind you to get out of the capital on your search for great exhibitions: London is so. Damned. Hot. If you were looking to keep cool, and you were given the option of the fiery pits of hell, or riding for the length of the Victoria Line, I say: bring on the sinning!
But have no fear, instead of standing for hours in slow-moving crowds of unimpressed school children and tourist families who fell out over breakfast but are determined to save the day before mum starts crying again, at the capital’s surprisingly poorly ventilated museums and galleries, here is your go-to list of exhibitions to see outside of London this August.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby - Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper - until 07 September
Joseph Wright is famous for many things, from his era-defining paintings of the Age of Enlightenment to his mastery of tenebrism, but the biggest thing is that he’s from Derby. It’s right there in the name. The nickname was actually given to Joseph to differentiate his works from the work of the artist Richard Wright when their paintings were on display in the same exhibitions, given that first names were rarely included in the lineups. But where’s Richard Wright now, huh? In Wright’s home town, visitors will be given a chance to see his drawings and works on paper, which are often overlooked thanks to his much more famous paintings of people doing intense shit like asphyxiating birds to death. I’ll be honest, though, that while this Joseph Wright of Derby show looks excellent, I want to equally encourage you to go to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s other show, all about Dracula and his surprising link to the city. Please watch the promo video, it’s wild.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxfordshire - Movements for Staying Alive - until 07 September
No touching, no running, no screaming. These are the rules we all silently sign up to when we enter exhibition spaces. Well, not at Modern Art Oxford this summer. Well, maybe don’t run or scream. And probably don’t assume you can touch, either. But Movements for Staying Alive is all about the importance of our bodies in the art-viewing process, and how we move when we engage with art. In MAO’s mission to knock Sight off the gallery top-spot of senses, several interactive works will be on display, finally giving Touch a look-in. With new commissions as well as historical works on show, this exhibition promises to reconnect you to your body, unlocking your connections with the artworks in the process. Sight is dead - long live touch!
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock - until 14 September
The UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art is back! A lot has changed since the Biennial was last in Liverpool: Trump’s back in the White House, basically everything is AI, and Katy Perry is an astronaut now. But some things never change, like Liverpool’s dedication to celebrating its heritage, and people from London travelling to the Biennial being surprised at “how far away the North is.” Back for its 13th edition, this year’s festival is taking over 12 venues across the city, and is called ‘BEDROCK’, referencing Liverpool’s literal geographical foundations and social history. The Walker Art Gallery, home to one of the UK’s largest art collections, will be a great space for Biennial-goers to start. But can we agree that “biennale” sounds better? Especially when said with a Scouse accent.
It’s 250 years since Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden, back at a time when being born in Covent Garden meant you had humble beginnings, rather than being the child of a Russian oligarch. To celebrate, the Holburne Museum (a beautiful Grade I listed building to the architecture enthusiasts, and Lady Danbury’s house in Bridgerton to the horny Netflix fans) is putting on a showcase of works by Turner and his contemporaries in watercolour. In the 19th century, the hip thing to do if you were an artist was to get outside and paint en plein air (just like in the 21st century, the hip thing to do if you’re an artist is to start an ambitious newsletter that you only send out twice) and watercolour palettes enabled artists to do this easily. The Holburne Museum is boasting excellent examples from some of the UK’s most beloved 19th-century artists in Impressions in Watercolour, and their café looks nice too.
Lightbox Gallery, Surrey - Andy Warhol - until 02 November
Of the five recommended exhibition lists I’ve made for gowithYamo this year, Andy Warhol has featured in three. I just can’t get enough of the little fella! Partnering up with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the Lightbox Gallery in Woking is putting on a comprehensive exhibition starring several of Warhol’s greatest hits, as well as intimate, rarely-displayed works that give you an insight into the icon’s artistic processes. It’ll also be worth going just because the Lightbox is a really lovely space, and there’s meant to be a very nice coffee spot in a canal boat on the river that runs right next to the gallery, but the one time I’ve been there, it was closed so I cannot personally vouch for its very niceness.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex - See the Sea - until 30 November
Go to Brighton! It’s a bit like London because everyone who lives in Brighton is from London, but it is otherwise lovely, and there’s no better excuse to get away to the coast than to escape August’s hellish humidity. See the Sea is a celebration of Brighton and Hove’s coastline, with artworks spanning hundreds of years. Not too much more information out about this one, so I’ve resorted to looking up some good Brighton facts to tell you instead. Did you know that it’s where ABBA won Eurovision in 1974? That’ll do.
Three hundred miles apart, like star-crossed lovers, Cornwall and Yorkshire have a past. In the mid-late 19th century, Cornwall saw droves of artists arriving (on brand new trains, invented just decades before, running with about the same frequency as they do today, given the amount of cancellations - am I right?!) to enjoy the landscape and the light reflecting off the sea. Several artists who made a name for themselves in St Ives and the surrounding villages were from Yorkshire, most famously the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made her way down West after the outbreak of World War Two with her husband Ben Nicholson (apparently they offered Piet Mondrian a lift but he didn’t fancy it). Now Leeds Art Gallery are celebrating the two regions’ shared artistic heritage, including work by contemporary artists for whom Hepworth is a major inspiration.
Dovecot Studios, Midlothian - IKEA: Magical Patterns - until 17 January 2026
IKEA is very good at many things, including but not limited to: meatballs, testing marriages with flat pack furniture, and a day out for when relatives are visiting from out of town. But what they do particularly well is pattern. Dovecot Studios is spending the second half of 2025 celebrating 60 years of IKEA’s innovative textile design with Magical Patterns. All things bright and beautiful are going on display, from the pioneering prints of the Swedish collective 10-gruppen who started it all, to more recent collaborations with iconic contemporary designers like Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko. So, pop on your ROCKÅN, grab your keys from your KALLAX, and don’t forget to turn off your TÅGARP, and head to Edinburgh for some Swedish celebration this summer.
I couldn’t wait for August to roll around to include this show, which I have been itching to share for months. If you are in Exeter, I beg you to see this display all about staplers. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery regularly puts on its What Do You Collect? exhibits, loaning objects from a local collector of something niche (for the first half of 2025, it was Mingei pottery, but before then, RAMM had showcased cameras, oil cans, and handkerchiefs). Renny, whose collection of staplers is finally having its moment in the sun, began collecting during the pandemic when they were forced to work from home and were lent an old stapler by a colleague. Now boasting a collection of dozens of staplers, ranging from the mid- to late 20th century and including models from the UK and abroad, Renny is giving us the opportunity of a lifetime: let’s spend some time looking at loads of staplers.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex - It Takes a Village - until 01 February 2026
Ditchling is such a beautiful village, it makes you a bit cross. At the heart of the village - inside what is essentially a moat of very nice gift shops selling very nice hand cream and very nice restaurants selling very nice dinners - is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, a fantastic arts venue dedicated to the history of the village as a centre for makers in the early 20th century. A bit like Charleston - fewer than 15 miles away - Ditchling, set amongst the beautiful South Downs, found itself an attractive location for artists at the turn of the century (I like to think of both locations like warring football teams, made up of creative poshos). It Takes a Village examines the museum and village’s artistic heritage (tackling some tricky themes - what with Eric Gill being the founding father of the whole artistic group - with real nuance and openness), putting on display several works from their collection of over 20,000 objects which have never been exhibited before, as well as displaying work by local contemporary artists.
Not London: 10 Exhibitions to See in the UK in August
Summer is here in full force, which gives me another reason to remind you to get out of the capital on your search for great exhibitions: London is so. Damned. Hot. If you were looking to keep cool, and you were given the option of the fiery pits of hell, or riding for the length of the Victoria Line, I say: bring on the sinning!
But have no fear, instead of standing for hours in slow-moving crowds of unimpressed school children and tourist families who fell out over breakfast but are determined to save the day before mum starts crying again, at the capital’s surprisingly poorly ventilated museums and galleries, here is your go-to list of exhibitions to see outside of London this August.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby - Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper - until 07 September
Joseph Wright is famous for many things, from his era-defining paintings of the Age of Enlightenment to his mastery of tenebrism, but the biggest thing is that he’s from Derby. It’s right there in the name. The nickname was actually given to Joseph to differentiate his works from the work of the artist Richard Wright when their paintings were on display in the same exhibitions, given that first names were rarely included in the lineups. But where’s Richard Wright now, huh? In Wright’s home town, visitors will be given a chance to see his drawings and works on paper, which are often overlooked thanks to his much more famous paintings of people doing intense shit like asphyxiating birds to death. I’ll be honest, though, that while this Joseph Wright of Derby show looks excellent, I want to equally encourage you to go to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s other show, all about Dracula and his surprising link to the city. Please watch the promo video, it’s wild.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxfordshire - Movements for Staying Alive - until 07 September
No touching, no running, no screaming. These are the rules we all silently sign up to when we enter exhibition spaces. Well, not at Modern Art Oxford this summer. Well, maybe don’t run or scream. And probably don’t assume you can touch, either. But Movements for Staying Alive is all about the importance of our bodies in the art-viewing process, and how we move when we engage with art. In MAO’s mission to knock Sight off the gallery top-spot of senses, several interactive works will be on display, finally giving Touch a look-in. With new commissions as well as historical works on show, this exhibition promises to reconnect you to your body, unlocking your connections with the artworks in the process. Sight is dead - long live touch!
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock - until 14 September
The UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art is back! A lot has changed since the Biennial was last in Liverpool: Trump’s back in the White House, basically everything is AI, and Katy Perry is an astronaut now. But some things never change, like Liverpool’s dedication to celebrating its heritage, and people from London travelling to the Biennial being surprised at “how far away the North is.” Back for its 13th edition, this year’s festival is taking over 12 venues across the city, and is called ‘BEDROCK’, referencing Liverpool’s literal geographical foundations and social history. The Walker Art Gallery, home to one of the UK’s largest art collections, will be a great space for Biennial-goers to start. But can we agree that “biennale” sounds better? Especially when said with a Scouse accent.
It’s 250 years since Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden, back at a time when being born in Covent Garden meant you had humble beginnings, rather than being the child of a Russian oligarch. To celebrate, the Holburne Museum (a beautiful Grade I listed building to the architecture enthusiasts, and Lady Danbury’s house in Bridgerton to the horny Netflix fans) is putting on a showcase of works by Turner and his contemporaries in watercolour. In the 19th century, the hip thing to do if you were an artist was to get outside and paint en plein air (just like in the 21st century, the hip thing to do if you’re an artist is to start an ambitious newsletter that you only send out twice) and watercolour palettes enabled artists to do this easily. The Holburne Museum is boasting excellent examples from some of the UK’s most beloved 19th-century artists in Impressions in Watercolour, and their café looks nice too.
Lightbox Gallery, Surrey - Andy Warhol - until 02 November
Of the five recommended exhibition lists I’ve made for gowithYamo this year, Andy Warhol has featured in three. I just can’t get enough of the little fella! Partnering up with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the Lightbox Gallery in Woking is putting on a comprehensive exhibition starring several of Warhol’s greatest hits, as well as intimate, rarely-displayed works that give you an insight into the icon’s artistic processes. It’ll also be worth going just because the Lightbox is a really lovely space, and there’s meant to be a very nice coffee spot in a canal boat on the river that runs right next to the gallery, but the one time I’ve been there, it was closed so I cannot personally vouch for its very niceness.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex - See the Sea - until 30 November
Go to Brighton! It’s a bit like London because everyone who lives in Brighton is from London, but it is otherwise lovely, and there’s no better excuse to get away to the coast than to escape August’s hellish humidity. See the Sea is a celebration of Brighton and Hove’s coastline, with artworks spanning hundreds of years. Not too much more information out about this one, so I’ve resorted to looking up some good Brighton facts to tell you instead. Did you know that it’s where ABBA won Eurovision in 1974? That’ll do.
Three hundred miles apart, like star-crossed lovers, Cornwall and Yorkshire have a past. In the mid-late 19th century, Cornwall saw droves of artists arriving (on brand new trains, invented just decades before, running with about the same frequency as they do today, given the amount of cancellations - am I right?!) to enjoy the landscape and the light reflecting off the sea. Several artists who made a name for themselves in St Ives and the surrounding villages were from Yorkshire, most famously the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made her way down West after the outbreak of World War Two with her husband Ben Nicholson (apparently they offered Piet Mondrian a lift but he didn’t fancy it). Now Leeds Art Gallery are celebrating the two regions’ shared artistic heritage, including work by contemporary artists for whom Hepworth is a major inspiration.
Dovecot Studios, Midlothian - IKEA: Magical Patterns - until 17 January 2026
IKEA is very good at many things, including but not limited to: meatballs, testing marriages with flat pack furniture, and a day out for when relatives are visiting from out of town. But what they do particularly well is pattern. Dovecot Studios is spending the second half of 2025 celebrating 60 years of IKEA’s innovative textile design with Magical Patterns. All things bright and beautiful are going on display, from the pioneering prints of the Swedish collective 10-gruppen who started it all, to more recent collaborations with iconic contemporary designers like Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko. So, pop on your ROCKÅN, grab your keys from your KALLAX, and don’t forget to turn off your TÅGARP, and head to Edinburgh for some Swedish celebration this summer.
I couldn’t wait for August to roll around to include this show, which I have been itching to share for months. If you are in Exeter, I beg you to see this display all about staplers. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery regularly puts on its What Do You Collect? exhibits, loaning objects from a local collector of something niche (for the first half of 2025, it was Mingei pottery, but before then, RAMM had showcased cameras, oil cans, and handkerchiefs). Renny, whose collection of staplers is finally having its moment in the sun, began collecting during the pandemic when they were forced to work from home and were lent an old stapler by a colleague. Now boasting a collection of dozens of staplers, ranging from the mid- to late 20th century and including models from the UK and abroad, Renny is giving us the opportunity of a lifetime: let’s spend some time looking at loads of staplers.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex - It Takes a Village - until 01 February 2026
Ditchling is such a beautiful village, it makes you a bit cross. At the heart of the village - inside what is essentially a moat of very nice gift shops selling very nice hand cream and very nice restaurants selling very nice dinners - is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, a fantastic arts venue dedicated to the history of the village as a centre for makers in the early 20th century. A bit like Charleston - fewer than 15 miles away - Ditchling, set amongst the beautiful South Downs, found itself an attractive location for artists at the turn of the century (I like to think of both locations like warring football teams, made up of creative poshos). It Takes a Village examines the museum and village’s artistic heritage (tackling some tricky themes - what with Eric Gill being the founding father of the whole artistic group - with real nuance and openness), putting on display several works from their collection of over 20,000 objects which have never been exhibited before, as well as displaying work by local contemporary artists.
Not London: 10 Exhibitions to See in the UK in August
Summer is here in full force, which gives me another reason to remind you to get out of the capital on your search for great exhibitions: London is so. Damned. Hot. If you were looking to keep cool, and you were given the option of the fiery pits of hell, or riding for the length of the Victoria Line, I say: bring on the sinning!
But have no fear, instead of standing for hours in slow-moving crowds of unimpressed school children and tourist families who fell out over breakfast but are determined to save the day before mum starts crying again, at the capital’s surprisingly poorly ventilated museums and galleries, here is your go-to list of exhibitions to see outside of London this August.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby - Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper - until 07 September
Joseph Wright is famous for many things, from his era-defining paintings of the Age of Enlightenment to his mastery of tenebrism, but the biggest thing is that he’s from Derby. It’s right there in the name. The nickname was actually given to Joseph to differentiate his works from the work of the artist Richard Wright when their paintings were on display in the same exhibitions, given that first names were rarely included in the lineups. But where’s Richard Wright now, huh? In Wright’s home town, visitors will be given a chance to see his drawings and works on paper, which are often overlooked thanks to his much more famous paintings of people doing intense shit like asphyxiating birds to death. I’ll be honest, though, that while this Joseph Wright of Derby show looks excellent, I want to equally encourage you to go to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s other show, all about Dracula and his surprising link to the city. Please watch the promo video, it’s wild.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxfordshire - Movements for Staying Alive - until 07 September
No touching, no running, no screaming. These are the rules we all silently sign up to when we enter exhibition spaces. Well, not at Modern Art Oxford this summer. Well, maybe don’t run or scream. And probably don’t assume you can touch, either. But Movements for Staying Alive is all about the importance of our bodies in the art-viewing process, and how we move when we engage with art. In MAO’s mission to knock Sight off the gallery top-spot of senses, several interactive works will be on display, finally giving Touch a look-in. With new commissions as well as historical works on show, this exhibition promises to reconnect you to your body, unlocking your connections with the artworks in the process. Sight is dead - long live touch!
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock - until 14 September
The UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art is back! A lot has changed since the Biennial was last in Liverpool: Trump’s back in the White House, basically everything is AI, and Katy Perry is an astronaut now. But some things never change, like Liverpool’s dedication to celebrating its heritage, and people from London travelling to the Biennial being surprised at “how far away the North is.” Back for its 13th edition, this year’s festival is taking over 12 venues across the city, and is called ‘BEDROCK’, referencing Liverpool’s literal geographical foundations and social history. The Walker Art Gallery, home to one of the UK’s largest art collections, will be a great space for Biennial-goers to start. But can we agree that “biennale” sounds better? Especially when said with a Scouse accent.
It’s 250 years since Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden, back at a time when being born in Covent Garden meant you had humble beginnings, rather than being the child of a Russian oligarch. To celebrate, the Holburne Museum (a beautiful Grade I listed building to the architecture enthusiasts, and Lady Danbury’s house in Bridgerton to the horny Netflix fans) is putting on a showcase of works by Turner and his contemporaries in watercolour. In the 19th century, the hip thing to do if you were an artist was to get outside and paint en plein air (just like in the 21st century, the hip thing to do if you’re an artist is to start an ambitious newsletter that you only send out twice) and watercolour palettes enabled artists to do this easily. The Holburne Museum is boasting excellent examples from some of the UK’s most beloved 19th-century artists in Impressions in Watercolour, and their café looks nice too.
Lightbox Gallery, Surrey - Andy Warhol - until 02 November
Of the five recommended exhibition lists I’ve made for gowithYamo this year, Andy Warhol has featured in three. I just can’t get enough of the little fella! Partnering up with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the Lightbox Gallery in Woking is putting on a comprehensive exhibition starring several of Warhol’s greatest hits, as well as intimate, rarely-displayed works that give you an insight into the icon’s artistic processes. It’ll also be worth going just because the Lightbox is a really lovely space, and there’s meant to be a very nice coffee spot in a canal boat on the river that runs right next to the gallery, but the one time I’ve been there, it was closed so I cannot personally vouch for its very niceness.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex - See the Sea - until 30 November
Go to Brighton! It’s a bit like London because everyone who lives in Brighton is from London, but it is otherwise lovely, and there’s no better excuse to get away to the coast than to escape August’s hellish humidity. See the Sea is a celebration of Brighton and Hove’s coastline, with artworks spanning hundreds of years. Not too much more information out about this one, so I’ve resorted to looking up some good Brighton facts to tell you instead. Did you know that it’s where ABBA won Eurovision in 1974? That’ll do.
Three hundred miles apart, like star-crossed lovers, Cornwall and Yorkshire have a past. In the mid-late 19th century, Cornwall saw droves of artists arriving (on brand new trains, invented just decades before, running with about the same frequency as they do today, given the amount of cancellations - am I right?!) to enjoy the landscape and the light reflecting off the sea. Several artists who made a name for themselves in St Ives and the surrounding villages were from Yorkshire, most famously the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made her way down West after the outbreak of World War Two with her husband Ben Nicholson (apparently they offered Piet Mondrian a lift but he didn’t fancy it). Now Leeds Art Gallery are celebrating the two regions’ shared artistic heritage, including work by contemporary artists for whom Hepworth is a major inspiration.
Dovecot Studios, Midlothian - IKEA: Magical Patterns - until 17 January 2026
IKEA is very good at many things, including but not limited to: meatballs, testing marriages with flat pack furniture, and a day out for when relatives are visiting from out of town. But what they do particularly well is pattern. Dovecot Studios is spending the second half of 2025 celebrating 60 years of IKEA’s innovative textile design with Magical Patterns. All things bright and beautiful are going on display, from the pioneering prints of the Swedish collective 10-gruppen who started it all, to more recent collaborations with iconic contemporary designers like Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko. So, pop on your ROCKÅN, grab your keys from your KALLAX, and don’t forget to turn off your TÅGARP, and head to Edinburgh for some Swedish celebration this summer.
I couldn’t wait for August to roll around to include this show, which I have been itching to share for months. If you are in Exeter, I beg you to see this display all about staplers. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery regularly puts on its What Do You Collect? exhibits, loaning objects from a local collector of something niche (for the first half of 2025, it was Mingei pottery, but before then, RAMM had showcased cameras, oil cans, and handkerchiefs). Renny, whose collection of staplers is finally having its moment in the sun, began collecting during the pandemic when they were forced to work from home and were lent an old stapler by a colleague. Now boasting a collection of dozens of staplers, ranging from the mid- to late 20th century and including models from the UK and abroad, Renny is giving us the opportunity of a lifetime: let’s spend some time looking at loads of staplers.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex - It Takes a Village - until 01 February 2026
Ditchling is such a beautiful village, it makes you a bit cross. At the heart of the village - inside what is essentially a moat of very nice gift shops selling very nice hand cream and very nice restaurants selling very nice dinners - is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, a fantastic arts venue dedicated to the history of the village as a centre for makers in the early 20th century. A bit like Charleston - fewer than 15 miles away - Ditchling, set amongst the beautiful South Downs, found itself an attractive location for artists at the turn of the century (I like to think of both locations like warring football teams, made up of creative poshos). It Takes a Village examines the museum and village’s artistic heritage (tackling some tricky themes - what with Eric Gill being the founding father of the whole artistic group - with real nuance and openness), putting on display several works from their collection of over 20,000 objects which have never been exhibited before, as well as displaying work by local contemporary artists.
Not London: 10 Exhibitions to See in the UK in August
Summer is here in full force, which gives me another reason to remind you to get out of the capital on your search for great exhibitions: London is so. Damned. Hot. If you were looking to keep cool, and you were given the option of the fiery pits of hell, or riding for the length of the Victoria Line, I say: bring on the sinning!
But have no fear, instead of standing for hours in slow-moving crowds of unimpressed school children and tourist families who fell out over breakfast but are determined to save the day before mum starts crying again, at the capital’s surprisingly poorly ventilated museums and galleries, here is your go-to list of exhibitions to see outside of London this August.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby - Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper - until 07 September
Joseph Wright is famous for many things, from his era-defining paintings of the Age of Enlightenment to his mastery of tenebrism, but the biggest thing is that he’s from Derby. It’s right there in the name. The nickname was actually given to Joseph to differentiate his works from the work of the artist Richard Wright when their paintings were on display in the same exhibitions, given that first names were rarely included in the lineups. But where’s Richard Wright now, huh? In Wright’s home town, visitors will be given a chance to see his drawings and works on paper, which are often overlooked thanks to his much more famous paintings of people doing intense shit like asphyxiating birds to death. I’ll be honest, though, that while this Joseph Wright of Derby show looks excellent, I want to equally encourage you to go to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s other show, all about Dracula and his surprising link to the city. Please watch the promo video, it’s wild.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxfordshire - Movements for Staying Alive - until 07 September
No touching, no running, no screaming. These are the rules we all silently sign up to when we enter exhibition spaces. Well, not at Modern Art Oxford this summer. Well, maybe don’t run or scream. And probably don’t assume you can touch, either. But Movements for Staying Alive is all about the importance of our bodies in the art-viewing process, and how we move when we engage with art. In MAO’s mission to knock Sight off the gallery top-spot of senses, several interactive works will be on display, finally giving Touch a look-in. With new commissions as well as historical works on show, this exhibition promises to reconnect you to your body, unlocking your connections with the artworks in the process. Sight is dead - long live touch!
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock - until 14 September
The UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art is back! A lot has changed since the Biennial was last in Liverpool: Trump’s back in the White House, basically everything is AI, and Katy Perry is an astronaut now. But some things never change, like Liverpool’s dedication to celebrating its heritage, and people from London travelling to the Biennial being surprised at “how far away the North is.” Back for its 13th edition, this year’s festival is taking over 12 venues across the city, and is called ‘BEDROCK’, referencing Liverpool’s literal geographical foundations and social history. The Walker Art Gallery, home to one of the UK’s largest art collections, will be a great space for Biennial-goers to start. But can we agree that “biennale” sounds better? Especially when said with a Scouse accent.
It’s 250 years since Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden, back at a time when being born in Covent Garden meant you had humble beginnings, rather than being the child of a Russian oligarch. To celebrate, the Holburne Museum (a beautiful Grade I listed building to the architecture enthusiasts, and Lady Danbury’s house in Bridgerton to the horny Netflix fans) is putting on a showcase of works by Turner and his contemporaries in watercolour. In the 19th century, the hip thing to do if you were an artist was to get outside and paint en plein air (just like in the 21st century, the hip thing to do if you’re an artist is to start an ambitious newsletter that you only send out twice) and watercolour palettes enabled artists to do this easily. The Holburne Museum is boasting excellent examples from some of the UK’s most beloved 19th-century artists in Impressions in Watercolour, and their café looks nice too.
Lightbox Gallery, Surrey - Andy Warhol - until 02 November
Of the five recommended exhibition lists I’ve made for gowithYamo this year, Andy Warhol has featured in three. I just can’t get enough of the little fella! Partnering up with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the Lightbox Gallery in Woking is putting on a comprehensive exhibition starring several of Warhol’s greatest hits, as well as intimate, rarely-displayed works that give you an insight into the icon’s artistic processes. It’ll also be worth going just because the Lightbox is a really lovely space, and there’s meant to be a very nice coffee spot in a canal boat on the river that runs right next to the gallery, but the one time I’ve been there, it was closed so I cannot personally vouch for its very niceness.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex - See the Sea - until 30 November
Go to Brighton! It’s a bit like London because everyone who lives in Brighton is from London, but it is otherwise lovely, and there’s no better excuse to get away to the coast than to escape August’s hellish humidity. See the Sea is a celebration of Brighton and Hove’s coastline, with artworks spanning hundreds of years. Not too much more information out about this one, so I’ve resorted to looking up some good Brighton facts to tell you instead. Did you know that it’s where ABBA won Eurovision in 1974? That’ll do.
Three hundred miles apart, like star-crossed lovers, Cornwall and Yorkshire have a past. In the mid-late 19th century, Cornwall saw droves of artists arriving (on brand new trains, invented just decades before, running with about the same frequency as they do today, given the amount of cancellations - am I right?!) to enjoy the landscape and the light reflecting off the sea. Several artists who made a name for themselves in St Ives and the surrounding villages were from Yorkshire, most famously the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made her way down West after the outbreak of World War Two with her husband Ben Nicholson (apparently they offered Piet Mondrian a lift but he didn’t fancy it). Now Leeds Art Gallery are celebrating the two regions’ shared artistic heritage, including work by contemporary artists for whom Hepworth is a major inspiration.
Dovecot Studios, Midlothian - IKEA: Magical Patterns - until 17 January 2026
IKEA is very good at many things, including but not limited to: meatballs, testing marriages with flat pack furniture, and a day out for when relatives are visiting from out of town. But what they do particularly well is pattern. Dovecot Studios is spending the second half of 2025 celebrating 60 years of IKEA’s innovative textile design with Magical Patterns. All things bright and beautiful are going on display, from the pioneering prints of the Swedish collective 10-gruppen who started it all, to more recent collaborations with iconic contemporary designers like Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko. So, pop on your ROCKÅN, grab your keys from your KALLAX, and don’t forget to turn off your TÅGARP, and head to Edinburgh for some Swedish celebration this summer.
I couldn’t wait for August to roll around to include this show, which I have been itching to share for months. If you are in Exeter, I beg you to see this display all about staplers. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery regularly puts on its What Do You Collect? exhibits, loaning objects from a local collector of something niche (for the first half of 2025, it was Mingei pottery, but before then, RAMM had showcased cameras, oil cans, and handkerchiefs). Renny, whose collection of staplers is finally having its moment in the sun, began collecting during the pandemic when they were forced to work from home and were lent an old stapler by a colleague. Now boasting a collection of dozens of staplers, ranging from the mid- to late 20th century and including models from the UK and abroad, Renny is giving us the opportunity of a lifetime: let’s spend some time looking at loads of staplers.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex - It Takes a Village - until 01 February 2026
Ditchling is such a beautiful village, it makes you a bit cross. At the heart of the village - inside what is essentially a moat of very nice gift shops selling very nice hand cream and very nice restaurants selling very nice dinners - is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, a fantastic arts venue dedicated to the history of the village as a centre for makers in the early 20th century. A bit like Charleston - fewer than 15 miles away - Ditchling, set amongst the beautiful South Downs, found itself an attractive location for artists at the turn of the century (I like to think of both locations like warring football teams, made up of creative poshos). It Takes a Village examines the museum and village’s artistic heritage (tackling some tricky themes - what with Eric Gill being the founding father of the whole artistic group - with real nuance and openness), putting on display several works from their collection of over 20,000 objects which have never been exhibited before, as well as displaying work by local contemporary artists.
Not London: 10 Exhibitions to See in the UK in August
Summer is here in full force, which gives me another reason to remind you to get out of the capital on your search for great exhibitions: London is so. Damned. Hot. If you were looking to keep cool, and you were given the option of the fiery pits of hell, or riding for the length of the Victoria Line, I say: bring on the sinning!
But have no fear, instead of standing for hours in slow-moving crowds of unimpressed school children and tourist families who fell out over breakfast but are determined to save the day before mum starts crying again, at the capital’s surprisingly poorly ventilated museums and galleries, here is your go-to list of exhibitions to see outside of London this August.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derby - Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper - until 07 September
Joseph Wright is famous for many things, from his era-defining paintings of the Age of Enlightenment to his mastery of tenebrism, but the biggest thing is that he’s from Derby. It’s right there in the name. The nickname was actually given to Joseph to differentiate his works from the work of the artist Richard Wright when their paintings were on display in the same exhibitions, given that first names were rarely included in the lineups. But where’s Richard Wright now, huh? In Wright’s home town, visitors will be given a chance to see his drawings and works on paper, which are often overlooked thanks to his much more famous paintings of people doing intense shit like asphyxiating birds to death. I’ll be honest, though, that while this Joseph Wright of Derby show looks excellent, I want to equally encourage you to go to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery’s other show, all about Dracula and his surprising link to the city. Please watch the promo video, it’s wild.
Modern Art Oxford, Oxfordshire - Movements for Staying Alive - until 07 September
No touching, no running, no screaming. These are the rules we all silently sign up to when we enter exhibition spaces. Well, not at Modern Art Oxford this summer. Well, maybe don’t run or scream. And probably don’t assume you can touch, either. But Movements for Staying Alive is all about the importance of our bodies in the art-viewing process, and how we move when we engage with art. In MAO’s mission to knock Sight off the gallery top-spot of senses, several interactive works will be on display, finally giving Touch a look-in. With new commissions as well as historical works on show, this exhibition promises to reconnect you to your body, unlocking your connections with the artworks in the process. Sight is dead - long live touch!
Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside - Liverpool Biennial: Bedrock - until 14 September
The UK’s largest free festival of contemporary art is back! A lot has changed since the Biennial was last in Liverpool: Trump’s back in the White House, basically everything is AI, and Katy Perry is an astronaut now. But some things never change, like Liverpool’s dedication to celebrating its heritage, and people from London travelling to the Biennial being surprised at “how far away the North is.” Back for its 13th edition, this year’s festival is taking over 12 venues across the city, and is called ‘BEDROCK’, referencing Liverpool’s literal geographical foundations and social history. The Walker Art Gallery, home to one of the UK’s largest art collections, will be a great space for Biennial-goers to start. But can we agree that “biennale” sounds better? Especially when said with a Scouse accent.
It’s 250 years since Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in Covent Garden, back at a time when being born in Covent Garden meant you had humble beginnings, rather than being the child of a Russian oligarch. To celebrate, the Holburne Museum (a beautiful Grade I listed building to the architecture enthusiasts, and Lady Danbury’s house in Bridgerton to the horny Netflix fans) is putting on a showcase of works by Turner and his contemporaries in watercolour. In the 19th century, the hip thing to do if you were an artist was to get outside and paint en plein air (just like in the 21st century, the hip thing to do if you’re an artist is to start an ambitious newsletter that you only send out twice) and watercolour palettes enabled artists to do this easily. The Holburne Museum is boasting excellent examples from some of the UK’s most beloved 19th-century artists in Impressions in Watercolour, and their café looks nice too.
Lightbox Gallery, Surrey - Andy Warhol - until 02 November
Of the five recommended exhibition lists I’ve made for gowithYamo this year, Andy Warhol has featured in three. I just can’t get enough of the little fella! Partnering up with Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland, the Lightbox Gallery in Woking is putting on a comprehensive exhibition starring several of Warhol’s greatest hits, as well as intimate, rarely-displayed works that give you an insight into the icon’s artistic processes. It’ll also be worth going just because the Lightbox is a really lovely space, and there’s meant to be a very nice coffee spot in a canal boat on the river that runs right next to the gallery, but the one time I’ve been there, it was closed so I cannot personally vouch for its very niceness.
Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex - See the Sea - until 30 November
Go to Brighton! It’s a bit like London because everyone who lives in Brighton is from London, but it is otherwise lovely, and there’s no better excuse to get away to the coast than to escape August’s hellish humidity. See the Sea is a celebration of Brighton and Hove’s coastline, with artworks spanning hundreds of years. Not too much more information out about this one, so I’ve resorted to looking up some good Brighton facts to tell you instead. Did you know that it’s where ABBA won Eurovision in 1974? That’ll do.
Three hundred miles apart, like star-crossed lovers, Cornwall and Yorkshire have a past. In the mid-late 19th century, Cornwall saw droves of artists arriving (on brand new trains, invented just decades before, running with about the same frequency as they do today, given the amount of cancellations - am I right?!) to enjoy the landscape and the light reflecting off the sea. Several artists who made a name for themselves in St Ives and the surrounding villages were from Yorkshire, most famously the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, who made her way down West after the outbreak of World War Two with her husband Ben Nicholson (apparently they offered Piet Mondrian a lift but he didn’t fancy it). Now Leeds Art Gallery are celebrating the two regions’ shared artistic heritage, including work by contemporary artists for whom Hepworth is a major inspiration.
Dovecot Studios, Midlothian - IKEA: Magical Patterns - until 17 January 2026
IKEA is very good at many things, including but not limited to: meatballs, testing marriages with flat pack furniture, and a day out for when relatives are visiting from out of town. But what they do particularly well is pattern. Dovecot Studios is spending the second half of 2025 celebrating 60 years of IKEA’s innovative textile design with Magical Patterns. All things bright and beautiful are going on display, from the pioneering prints of the Swedish collective 10-gruppen who started it all, to more recent collaborations with iconic contemporary designers like Zandra Rhodes and Marimekko. So, pop on your ROCKÅN, grab your keys from your KALLAX, and don’t forget to turn off your TÅGARP, and head to Edinburgh for some Swedish celebration this summer.
I couldn’t wait for August to roll around to include this show, which I have been itching to share for months. If you are in Exeter, I beg you to see this display all about staplers. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery regularly puts on its What Do You Collect? exhibits, loaning objects from a local collector of something niche (for the first half of 2025, it was Mingei pottery, but before then, RAMM had showcased cameras, oil cans, and handkerchiefs). Renny, whose collection of staplers is finally having its moment in the sun, began collecting during the pandemic when they were forced to work from home and were lent an old stapler by a colleague. Now boasting a collection of dozens of staplers, ranging from the mid- to late 20th century and including models from the UK and abroad, Renny is giving us the opportunity of a lifetime: let’s spend some time looking at loads of staplers.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, East Sussex - It Takes a Village - until 01 February 2026
Ditchling is such a beautiful village, it makes you a bit cross. At the heart of the village - inside what is essentially a moat of very nice gift shops selling very nice hand cream and very nice restaurants selling very nice dinners - is Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, a fantastic arts venue dedicated to the history of the village as a centre for makers in the early 20th century. A bit like Charleston - fewer than 15 miles away - Ditchling, set amongst the beautiful South Downs, found itself an attractive location for artists at the turn of the century (I like to think of both locations like warring football teams, made up of creative poshos). It Takes a Village examines the museum and village’s artistic heritage (tackling some tricky themes - what with Eric Gill being the founding father of the whole artistic group - with real nuance and openness), putting on display several works from their collection of over 20,000 objects which have never been exhibited before, as well as displaying work by local contemporary artists.
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