Art of Our Time: Celebrating ten years of the Southampton Solent University Art Collection 

Tom Walker, A Civil Matter, Photograph, 2008

This exhibition celebrates both the long-standing history of art education at Southampton Solent and the tenth anniversary of the Southampton Solent University Art Collection. The formal inauguration of the SSU Art Collection took place in October 1998 for the dedication of the newly completed Sir Michael Andrews Building. It now boasts over 500 works by former students and staff.

What is a collection and why do we collect? Painter John Newlings suggests that, "Laid out for our gaze, they are Arks of ourselves, not pretending to be truth or theory but simply being in the world to remind us that art can wobble our views of the social, the political and the material cultures we think we live in." The great national and municipal collections perhaps show some of the essence of ourselves but a collection like the one at SSU, with its intrinsically democratic methodology – works are bought from degree shows and have to cover the range of student interest - reveals a wider view of ourselves and the period covered by the collection.

The collection at SSU is a working collection and is spread throughout the offices and corridors of the university, quietly encouraging staff and students to take in the ideas and thoughts of others.

The show will include a celebration of 150 years of the Art School at Southampton with a selection of artists prints drawn from portfolios published in the early 1980s. The work in the main collection is supplemented by work by visiting artists and portfolios commissioned from associates over the years, including work by Terry Frost, Maggie Hambling, Richard Eurich, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, James Sellars, and Graham Ovenden.