40 Years of Artist’s Open Houses in Brighton

Editors: Max Smolarski and Ciara Teefey

This year marks the 40^th anniversary of artists across Brighton and Hove opening their doors to the public to showcase their work. This tradition was started in 1982 by Ned Hoskin. Each year, since it began, artists have continued to join in to showcase their personal and private studios, with 64 open houses for the public to view this year alone.

After walking past an open house on my street, I decided to pay a visit. The artist is Dion Salvador Lloyd, and it is his 25^th year of taking part. He had a display of paintings from his latest collection throughout his house. They were contemporary abstract sea and landscape paintings ranging from shades of teal, blue and light green. 

He was an extremely welcoming man, making everyone feel homely. He was not shy and struck up conversations with everyone which provided an extremely intimate experience and allowed us to understand him more as an artist and how he works. 

After speaking to him briefly, I now know how he creates his art and what it means to him. He spends 10 hours a day listening to music and painting his emotions, letting it consume him. He said an average of 200 people come every day, many of whom have continuously shown him their support.

These open houses are a great way for people to explore the creativity of the city and create connections with artists. I strongly recommend looking through the houses if you have free time and nothing to do in Brighton! It is a great way to get out of your house and be immersed in something new, especially with multiple houses being a stone's throw away from each other.

The open houses will continue for another 2 weekends and the brochures containing the locations are available online here: https://aoh.org.uk/winter2025/map/