Portfolio:

Folk Threads:
Creative Communities For Climate Futures

Modern Painters, New Decorators is an artist-led organisation creating collaborative visual arts programmes rooted in placemaking. From our new purpose-built venue in Aumberry Gap, Loughborough, we support artists and local residents to imagine cultural futures together through exhibitions, workshops, research and events. Our work champions underrepresented voices, fosters creative progression for young people and families, and builds long-term cultural infrastructure for the town.

The Grand Opening

The Grand Opening of our new venue marked a major milestone for Modern Painters, New Decorators — a public celebration of accessible, community-centred arts in Loughborough. Through exhibitions, shared activity and a daytime launch gathering, we opened the doors to a purpose-built space shaped by local consultation and creative ambition. The event introduced our first programme in the new building, inviting visitors, partners and neighbours to collectively imagine what this site can become.

Jessica Ashman:

Chimera Island

Chimera Island, a solo exhibition by Jessica Ashman, inaugurated our new venue with a vivid exploration of landscape, belonging and ancestral memory. Through textiles, animation, sound and natural dyeing, Ashman reimagined rural and ecological spaces as sites of resistance and reconnection. Drawing from local histories, Caribbean heritage and global colonial legacies, Chimera Island constructed a speculative refuge — a hybrid island shaped by myth, research and personal archive, inviting visitors to consider how place might be re-envisioned beyond empire.

Studio at 17:

Greatest Hits

Greatest Hits brought together eleven artists from Studio at 17 to celebrate more than three decades of inclusive, community-driven creativity in Loughborough. Presented as part of our Grand Opening, the exhibition showcased standout works from across the group’s varied practices — from printmaking and collage to video and intimate drawings — reflecting the shared energy and peer support that defines Studio at 17. Formerly known as Albert Street Artists, the group has supported artists with lived experience of long-term mental ill health for over 30 years. Tangent Gallery, their public-facing space, sits alongside their active studio environment.

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