The art of curation
- Jul 20
- 2 min read
Words by Hannah Tapping
A welcoming gallery, whose commitment to presenting high-quality art is evident now, more than ever.
The Customs House Gallery, on the working harbourside at Porthleven is run by Louise and John Winterton, part of a small and committed team of three along with Debbie, who carefully curate this unique gallery space. It has occupied its position on the water’s edge for over 30 years, long enough to have witnessed the fashions of the art world come and go and secure enough in its own vision to have let them pass.
Porthleven itself is part of the offer. Lesser-known than many Cornish destinations, it remains a place of community, unhurried in the best sense and rooted in its own identity rather than performing for visitors. The gallery takes something of the same character. It is welcoming without being effortful and is the kind of space in which you might linger longer than you intended, drawn back to a work you thought you had already understood.
What the Customs House Gallery shows has always resisted easy categorisation. Seascapes, yes – this is Cornwall after all – but also still life and landscapes that move inland, find the moors and valleys and that particular quality of light that belongs to the far South West. Alongside the paintings sits an exceptional range of sculpture, among them work by Peter Boex and, more recently, Robin Fox, whose pieces have joined the gallery family and are shown nowhere else in the South West. There is a distinctiveness to Fox’s work that sits well within these walls: it asks something of the viewer and the gallery gives it room to do so.
The past year has brought a considered expansion of works, adding to an already strong stable of artists. Emma Perring, Vicky Prince and Belinda Millar have each arrived with something new to offer, from energy, colour, an eye shaped by different landscapes and varied ways of working.
That all three live and work outside Cornwall is not coincidental. Louise and John made a deliberate decision to cast the net further, to bring in work that diverges from what can be found elsewhere in the county and to ensure that what hangs on these walls remains genuinely varied. Diversity of perspective, they have found, deepens rather than dilutes a collection.
The flow of work across the year is carefully managed, planned in advance with the gallery’s artists so that the collection is always moving, constantly offering something new to those who return. A fresh body of work from Andrew Barrowman has recently arrived, bringing with it the pleasure of seeing an artist’s thinking evolve and of understanding a practice not through a single piece but through a body of work given proper space and attention.
The Customs House Gallery has marked its three decades by being intentional and curious and with John and Louise at the helm for the last 13 years, they have steered a course to excellence.
