Eastside Gallery

Eastside Gallery is pleased to invite Canterbury artists to contribute to the following exhibitions:

“Stride by Stride 2026”

The second show in our “Artist Development” series (First Steps – Stride by Stride – Momentum ’26). This is an annual showcase for artists with a moderate amount of exhibition experience. There is a 3x limit to exhibiting in this show.

Register by: 25 March 2026

Exhibition dates: 28 April – 23 May 2026

“Unreal Canterbury”

Unreal Canterbury conjures a region both enchanted and estranged — welcoming fantasy, celebrating the awesomeness of our place (that’s unreal!), perhaps revisiting the work of the Canterbury Regionalists or hinting at a darker undercurrent: a Canterbury where authenticity feels out of step with the messaging, or one that’s becoming harder to recognise. Artists are invited to engage with any or all of these ideas – or let the theme spark entirely new ones. The freedom is yours.

Register by: 22 April 2026

Exhibition dates: 26 May – 20 June 2026

“A Matter of Light and Depth”

This exhibition opens a wide field of inquiry where light and depth may be treated either as technical concern or conceptual provocation – formal, metaphorical, emotional, and perceptual.

Artists are encouraged to engage with the theme freely: some may explore the formal properties of high-contrast light and shadow, while others might approach it metaphorically – as a tension between surface and interiority, the frivolous and the meaningful, visibility and concealment. Still others may find resonance in entirely different registers and are welcome to do so.

Register by: 17 June 2026

Exhibition dates: 21 July – 15 August 2026

“Momentum ’26”

Eastside Gallery’s top show for the year, Momentum is designed for artists who are actively committed to developing their art practice and who have substantial, or substantive, exhibition experience in curated shows.

Register by: 5 August 2026

Exhibition dates: 8 September – 3 October 2026

“Good Trouble”

Coined during the Civil Rights era and echoed through the Black Lives Matter movement, the call to “make good trouble” originated as a rallying cry for the kind of resistance that sparks transformation. It’s a phrase charged with urgency, imagination, and the belief that disruption can be a force for good.

This exhibition expands the frame – inviting artists to interpret what good trouble means to them. We welcome the mischievous, the cathartic, the speculative and the radical. Stir gently or shake hard.

Register by: 2 September 2026

Exhibition dates: 6 – 31 October 2026

“Reflecting and Refracting”

Artists are invited to explore the ways we echo, mirror, turn inwards, or distort, bend and reshape what we see. Whether through formal composition or metaphor, the theme may evoke juxtapositions such as truth and distortion, clarity and transformation, stillness and motion, surface and depth. Artists are encouraged to interpret the theme in any way they like and in any medium.

Register by: Deadline passed

Exhibition Dates: 3-28 February 2026

“First Steps 2026”

The first in our “Artist Development” series for 2026 (First Steps – Stride by Stride – Momentum ’26). This is an annual showcase for artists who are new, or nearly new, to exhibiting. There is a 3x limit to exhibiting in this show.

Register by: Deadline passed

Exhibition dates: 3-28 March 2026

“Art as Proof of Life”

This exhibition proposes art as a way of living – urgent, embodied, essential.

Eastside Gallery invites submissions from artists who create because they have to – art as a daily insistence, a vital compulsion, a way staying present and staying human.

Whether it’s painting, sculpture, photography, moving image, or something else entirely – we want to see what drives you.

We’re not looking for polite or polished detachment. We want the work that keeps you up at night. The pieces that come from the depths and heights of anger, joy, terror, awe and obsession. The works you make to make your-self.

Register by: deadline passed

Exhibition dates: 31 March – 24 April 2026

To register your interest:

Contributor Forms can be downloaded from this page, requested by emailing arts@tewhare.org or picked up from Eastside Gallery during opening hours. We’re at 388 Worcester St, open Wednesdays-Thursdays 11am-5pm and Fridays-Saturdays 10am-5pm.

Please spread the word!

To be sure you don’t miss when open calls go out, make sure you’re on our artist database, which you can join by emailing arts@tewhare.org.

See our Exhibit page for our exhibition programme and details about the different types of shows we run.

Please note we can only exhibit the work of artists who live in Canterbury, can drop their artworks off in person and attend the opening event.

Selection considerations include the following:

Our commitment to artist development and to providing as many exhibition opportunities as possible for new and emerging artists
For Centre-run shows with a theme, the primary focus will always be on how artworks respond to that theme
Exhibition experience is important for the three Artist Development shows:
- First Steps is for artists who are new, or nearly new, to exhibiting
- Stride by Stride is for artists with a moderate amount of exhibition experience
- Momentum is for artists with substantial exhibition experience in curated shows
- Artists may exhibit up to three times in each of the Artist Development shows. There is no such limit for our other types of shows
Celebrating and supporting a diverse range of art forms
How well-developed works are
The need to balance the sizes and styles of different artworks to make the most of the gallery space and visitor experience