Image: Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth
Aspex in Portsmouth is presenting “Finding Folklore”, a display of work by the illustrator and maker Susie Barnard in the gallery’s Craft Space. The display opened on 16 September and continues until 29 November 2026.
The works explore the links between the landscapes, stories and folklore of the Isle of Wight. Barnard studied Illustration at the University of Portsmouth, and according to Aspex her practice is rooted in a lifelong connection to the island. She draws on its landscapes, folk tales and local legends to consider how place and storytelling are bound together, and how stories come to shape a sense of home.
Barnard is particularly interested in myths tied to specific locations. The display includes work responding to the long-established story of Elenor’s Grove and to the more recent legend of the Dragon Tree of Brighstone, which she reworks as colourful, tactile images and objects.
She works across linocut, collage and ceramics, using each medium differently. Aspex describes her linocuts as bold and graphic, echoing the visual language of folklore, while her collages focus on colour, shape and the more playful side of the tales. Her ceramics are decorated using sgraffito, a technique in which the artist carves through a layer of coloured clay slip to create detailed illustrated surfaces.
Taken together, the pieces form a visual record of places, stories and imagined worlds on the island, reflecting what the gallery presents as an enduring connection between landscape and memory.
“Finding Folklore” is part of Aspex’s autumn programme, which the gallery’s October newsletter frames around magic and mythology. The works in the Craft Space are offered for sale, with enquiries handled at the gallery’s front desk.
