Your Monthly Roundup: February
Each month we share a roundup of the latest news and events, exhibitions and blogs to keep you up to date with all of the latest ‘goings on’.
To receive our monthly update straight to your inbox, just sign up below!
February Features
Introducing 2026 Artist Retreats
Discover our renewed programme of immersive retreats.
This year sees the return of our Artist Retreats – thoughtfully structured courses combining individual studio practice, one-to-one mentoring with two professional artists, and focused creative group work. Whether you’re feeling creatively stuck or simply ready to explore your practice more deeply, these retreats create space to reconnect with your ideas, rebuild confidence and rediscover your artistic voice within a supportive peer environment.
The 2026 series will be led by Jill Eisele, Kate Southworth, Kerry Harding, Liz Hough and Ilker Cinarel, each bringing their own unique approaches.
Creating Together, Worldwide
More than 100 join our Online Art Club!
In just two weeks, more than 100 of you from around the world have joined our Online Art Club and begun creating together – it’s been a reminder of how powerful it is to feel connected in your creative life, wherever you’re based.
We have focused on loosening painting approaches and exploring composition, with the term continuing into more abstract explorations of colour and mark-making. You can still join us for the final two sessions, and catch up on the first two in your own time!

Exhibitions
What the Land Remembers
Exhibition: 10 February-30 August
Cornwall Museum & Art Gallery, Truro
Featuring artist tutor Amy Albright, this exhibition brings together ten contemporary women artists whose practices reflect the unyielding pull of the Cornish landscape.
Dotted across Cornwall, working from studios nestled in bustling harbours or perched on the edges of rugged moorland, each lets Cornwall’s landscape move through their work, shaped by salt air, stone, myth, and memory.
Aetheric Echoes
Exhibition: 14-18 April
The Poly, Falmouth
Featuring a former participant of our 2023 Porthmeor Programme, Helen Leaver, Aetheric Echoes is an immersive exhibition exploring how paintings hold energetic imprints of life’s encounters, events and emotions.
This is an invitation to slow down and reflect on how imagination and memories shape us.

This Month’s Read
We caught up with new artist tutor for 2026, Helen Ward, to talk about process, play and the joy of making.
From studio soundtracks to unexpected inspirations, Helen shares what shapes her work – and why imagination and curiosity matters.
Read more below or discover Helen’s upcoming course.

Sign Up
Want to be kept up to date each month? Sign up to our newsletter to receive updates on all of our courses and a monthly roundup of new & events. You can update your preferences to let us know how often you would like to hear from us and what you would like to hear about!
More ways to stay in the loop
17/2/2024
Share on
Related Stories
Inscape Outscape: A group exhibition
We are pleased to share an upcoming exhibition, ‘Inscape Outscape’. A collection of works by a group of contemporary artists who teach at the St Ives School of Painting. Made up of work from 18 artists, all with connections to St Ives and Cornwall, the exhibition will be open to the public from 10-17 December...
What is the Abstract Art Movement?
Discover the origins of the abstract art movement and learn about the leading pioneers of this enticing subject.
Your Monthly Roundup: January
A monthly round up of the latest news, insights and events. Sign up to our newsletter to receive this update straight to your inbox!


