LONDON.- After 20 nomadic years, Drawing Room, the UK’s leading arts organisation dedicated to displaying, making and sharing contemporary drawing, will settle in its new purpose-built home in Bermondsey, southeast London, opening to the public on 22 September 2023. Drawing Room is a division of studio provider Tannery Arts, which was established by artists in a Bermondsey Street warehouse in 1993. The 25-year lease on this new building includes an artists’ studio complex and marks a radical development in the history of the organisation.

Putting down roots in an area traditionally occupied by artists, Drawing Room is the only UK art gallery dedicated solely to the medium of drawing. With over 1,600 sq ft of double-height gallery spaces, it promises to become a key cultural destination for art lovers across the capital and beyond.

Built as part of a new neighbourhood of homes from award-winning developer London Square on a former industrial site with restored buildings including The Pickle Factory (where Branston Pickle was made for over 60 years), combined with newbuild, the complex is designed by Coffey Architects. It will also be home to Drawing Room’s learning studio along with a unique contemporary drawing library and research centre, open to all. With a regular programme of exhibitions, conversations between artists and other creatives, artist-led workshops and projects, Drawing Room’s new home will also be a hub for the local community and will support the careers of developing artists.

Drawing Room opened with two exhibitions which run from 22 September until 10 December. The first, UNBUILD: a site of possibility features Jessie Brennan,

Ian Kiaer, Tanoa Sasraku, Emily Speed and Do Ho Suh and considers the impact of buildings on our bodies, minds, memories and dreams. Using expanded forms of drawing, the artists explore how the built environment represents dreams and aspirations, cultural and physical displacement and the inequities of a patriarchal society.

The second exhibition, Drawing in Social Space reflects the projects that took place during Drawing Room’s period of gallery closure. In these projects, ‘drawing’ has been re-imagined as a tool for thinking, discovery, storytelling and communication, creating new connections exploring identity, politics, mapping and place-making.

Drawing Room is a non-profit public institution, founded in 2002 by Mary Doyle, Kate Macfarlane and Katharine Stout and is part of the studio organisation Tannery Arts which was set up by a small group of artists in Bermondsey in 1993. Drawing
Room is financially supported by artists through its Drawing Biennial fundraiser, by Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation, and by donations and
membership subscriptions. drawingroom.org.uk

Tannery Arts Ltd is an independent non-profit organisation, comprising a studio provider Tannery Arts and a public gallery, Drawing Room. Tannery Arts provides quality studio spaces for artists across central London, as well as offering them
valuable support and resources at often critical points in their development. tanneryarts.org.uk