Tim Southall is an artist & sculptor guided by the Quaker principles of Peace, Equality, Truth, Integrity, Simplicity and Sustainability.
Through his engagements in the land, walking practice and research, he unearths traces of hidden histories and with different materials and makes creative responses to highlight environmental or social injustices. His investigative walks in the Avon Valley led to the Hidden History art walks and the Open to Truth brass sculpture responded to learning about the extent of Quaker involvement in the brass industry in the 18th century and the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans.
In May 2024, with Rose Zhang and Gabrielle Hardy, he collaborated on a performance: Redressing and Renewal at the Holburne Museum. The dancers, responded to his readings of a poem by Robert Nugent, an eighteenth-century parliamentarian in denial of the injustices of slavery and the defiant extract by Ottabah Cuguano, a freedman and abolitionist, which showed foresight about reparations. Open to Truth, used in this performance, was later displayed at the Holburne Museum to provide a provocation to Gainsborough’s portrait of Nugent and encourage viewers to think about these injustices and be open to reparations.
His installation Ownership, displayed at the MA 2024 show at Bath Spa University, featured a film: Castle up the Woods made in partnership with Geza Csoz, This film documented three collaborative building events by fellow artists, stonewallers and university estate workers that highlighted their conversations who owns the land, why and how this land came into ownership and what this might mean for others whilst building Mash Castle Tower - a provocative stone ruin built as a folly adjacent to the Mansion House at Newton Park (built in 1780 by Joseph Langton from the profits of transatlantic traffic) Transit a limestone sculpture was mounted on a pallet ready for return to its owners at Newton Park.
Tim Southall seeks collaborative opportunities and has exhibited in a range of exhibitions in Bath and Bristol. He displayed a collaborative cardboard artwork Pica Pica with David Alesworth in Karachi in 2021, he was shortlisted with Open to new light for a cardboard outdoor public sculpture for the Lucca Biennale in 2022 and in 2023 he was a resident ‘land’ artist in Andalucia in 2023.
EXHIBITIONS
2025 Holburne Museum, Bath - Curious Minds - Mash
Locksbrook, Bath - Material Flows
2024 Bath Spa University MA Show- Ownership: Mash Castle Tower
Holburne Museum, Bath - Play the Museum: Open to Truth
Holburne Museum, Bath - Redressing & Renewal
Jigsaw, Bath - Art Showcase
2023 Bristol School of Art & RWA Garden, Bristol - Degree show : In - Out
2022 Starlings, Bristol - Off the wall
Walcot Chapel Art Space, Bath - Relativity
Bristol School of Art, Bristol - End of Year Show
Fringe Arts Bath, Bath - Rewind - Press Play
Lucca Biennale Cartasia, Lucca, Italy - Outdoor exhibition (semi-finalist)
2021 Koel Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan - Flight
Horfield Quaker Meeting House, Bristol - Inside- Out: Integrity
RWA Forecourt, Bristol - Integrity
Bristol School of Art, Bristol - End of Year Show
2020 Victoria Methodist Church, Bristol - Art of the cycle
2019 Bristol School of Art, Bristol - New life
2014 Bath University, Bath - Quakers Today
2013 The Bristol Guild, Bristol - So What Collective: Out of the blue
2012 The Southville Centre, Bristol - Art of Sustainability
RESIDENCIES AND COMMUNITY PROJECTS
2024- Emerge, Sion Hill, Bath
2024 Bristol Quakers - Hidden History Walks - between Keynsham, Saltford and Warmley
2024 Horfield Quaker Meeting House, Bristol - Artlings volunteer
2023 Bristol City Council - Blaise Castle Land Art
2022 Joya Arte + Ecologie, Velez Blanco, Spain - Resident Artist : Land Art
2022 Horfield Quaker Meeting House, Bristol - Creativity Festival coordinator
2021 Hotwells, Community Association, Bristol - Art under the flyover - volunteer artist
2020 Bricks, Bristol - St Annes Mapping Project - volunteer
2020 Studio Upstairs, Bristol - Volunteer assistant to Marian Liebmann - art therapist
2020 Creative Workspace, Bristol - Cardboard project - volunteer artist
TRUSTEE AND VOLUNTEER ROLES
2023 - AEOB Director - Bristol based housing charity
2022- GANE Chair of Trustees - grant-making charity for artists, designers and carers
2020- Cotswold AONB - Volunteer warden and stonewaller
2019 - Bristol Quakers Clerk of Weekly Committee - grant making for financial hardship
EDUCATION
2023- 24 Masters Fine Art with distinction- Bath Spa University, Bath
2021 - 23 B.A. Fine Art (Honours), First Class. Bristol School of Art, Bristol
2017 - 21 Foundation Degree Fine Art, Bristol School of Art, Bristol
2007 - 09 Foundation Diploma, Fine Art, Bristol School of Art, Bristol