Jamaica Street Studios

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Jamaica Street Studios

Jamaica Street Studios is an artist-led studios in the heart of Stokes Croft. A creative community that make, exhibit + collaborate.

Artist-led studios in former carriageworks, Bristol.

16/09/2026

Come and party with us at KIT FORM and celebrate our annual Open Studios weekend at Jamaica Street Studios. Our grade II listed building will open its doors for the weekend & on Friday we will have a line-up of DJs, Arbor beer behind the bar & good vibes. 🎉🪩🍻

With DJs:
📀 BobYT (Under The Lights) Bob YT

💿 Eran Lowdown (More Soup / SWU .fm) Eran Lowdown

📀 Dave Forde (Ujima) Dave Forde

BobYT (Under The Lights)
Bob YT is a vinyl DJ, selector and founder of Under The Lights. Drawing from funk, boogie, disco, Italo and house, his sets focus on groove, musical storytelling and dancefloor energy.

Eran Lowdown (More Soup / SWU .fm)
Catch Eran Lowdown, the man behind More Soup, serving up global disco flavours, a dash of spicy street soul and bold boogie notes.

Dave Forde (Ujima)
Dj and radio presenter, Dave Forde, plays a mixture of Latin, Brazilian and Funky House. It’s all about the rhythm and feel.

Grab a ticket now on Headfirst! PWYC (min. £5) with all proceeds going towards the upkeep of our community-owned building and supporting artists!

15/09/2026

Over the moon to see our very own Annie Clay's work on the cover of this month's Bristol 24/7 co.uk

Make sure to pick up a copy to read about our upcoming Open Studios & the other wonderful studios in Bristol!

13/08/2026

Our fundraising auction is BACK where you can get your hands on a bespoke work of art & support our community owned, artist-led studios

The online auction launches 27 August at 10:00 🎉🎉

Keep your eyes peeled for sneak peeks in the run up.. 👀

23/07/2026

With our Open Studios just around the corner (25 - 27th September) we thought we'd take the time to introduce some of our studio holders.

Featured here is Elaine Jones whose paintings embrace nature - transporting the viewer to wild and extreme climates inspired by her travels to remote and often uninhabited places.

We hope you'll join us in September to meet the artists and have a drink, a chat and a wander around our now community-owned building.

24/06/2026

Congratulations to Daniel Ablitt Dan Ablitt and Tom Hughes Tom Hughes who have both been selected for 'A Day In May' John Martin Gallery, 3 - 5 July.

Artists were asked to make one painting, on identical boards, on one day, in a landscape that mattered to them.

Dan's painting (slide 1) 'morning walk', oil on panel, was of St George's Park in Bristol.

Tom's painting (slide 2) 'Rhododendron study III', oil on board was of the flowers Glendurgan and North Helford.

Tickets for the show can be purchased on John Martin Gallery's website with proceeds being donated to The Wildlife Trusts.

05/06/2026

Date for your diary!

Studio holder Vera Boele-Keimer will be exhibiting works alongside artist Mary Flower in July, in KIT FORM.

Support/Structure
Vera Boele-Keimer and Mary Flower

preview evening
Thursday 16th July
18:00 - 20:30

Exhibition continues 17th, 18th, 19th July
12:00 - 18:00

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This two-person exhibition develops a dialogue between the work of Bristol-based artists Mary Flower and Vera Boele-Keimer.

Both share a fascination with the “vital materiality” of grids which they use as metaphorical and physical support structure in their works.

Whilst Vera’s work focuses on the grid as a methodical principle of woven fabric, Mary pushes the implied stability of grids to breaking point in her sculptural practice.

The resulting exhibition combines ceramics, moving image with works on paper and painting, interrogating the grid’s capacity to move, become undone and hold together.

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and

27/05/2026

Studio holders Dave Bain and Jess Knights have been busy painting in the sun as part of Upfest 🌞

Dave's mural celebrates motherhood and is a modern version of a Botticelli painting with a fruit-based connection to its location on Garnet Street. First picture credit:

Jess spent Saturday painting at To***co Factory , painting her board alongside lots of brilliant artists. Jess painted her brother's cat Minnow, alongside little reminders to slow down, enjoy your morning coffee, connect with nature and be more present. (Pictures 2&3)

Upfest continues until Sunday 31st May with a jam-packed programme including live painting, activities for families & DJs at To***co Factory on Saturday 30th. More details at upfest.co.uk

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15/05/2026

JSS is pleased to be hosting curator Hettie Judah for 'How to Enter the Art World After...'

Sat 23 May, from 5pm
KIT FORM

Hettie will be joined by three of our very own studio holders Dorcas Casey, Louisa Fairclough and Jessa Fairbrother, alongside Ellie Kerr-Smiley whose work will be showing in KIT FORM

TICKETS VIA HEADFIRST
hdfst.uk/e153282

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DORCAS CASEY
Dorcas Casey is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Bristol. She is interested in dreams, intuition, folk rituals, memory and stories. She works with many different materials including fabric, plaster, bronze, and ceramics. Dorcas studied Sculpture and Multi-disciplinary printmaking. She is an Academician at the RWA and has a studio at Jamaica Street Studios in Stokes Croft.

LOUISA FAIRCLOUGH
Returned from a lengthy period of mental illness, sound is at the core of Louisa Fairclough's practice, both analogue (16mm film/ tape loops) and digital. Louisa is currently making sound/live work rooted in her lived experience of psychosis, a project funded by ACE. Louisa is a co-founder of BEEF, a film and sound collective based at Jamaica Street Studios.

JESSA FAIRBROTHER
Fairbrother uses stories of her maternal line, historical archives and the porous body with photography, performance, embroidery and writing. She completed an MA at the University of Westminster and is currently undertaking a practice-led PhD through Kingston University / Wellcome Collection, funded by Techne, which looks at miscarriage in relation to astrological methods of thinking. Her work appeared in Hayward Touring’s Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood and is held in several national collections in the UK

ELLIE KERR-SMILEY
Ellie Kerr-Smiley is a self-taught contemporary figurative artist, whose work looks to marry together the real and the imagined. With a strong link to storytelling, Ellie’s work explores the interiority of her sitters by combining traditional portraiture methods with illustrative representations of the internal self.

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Photo 3 credit: Trish Morissey

13/05/2026

SAVE THE DATE!
25 / 26 / 27 September
Open Studios will be back in 2026 🎉

Explore our beautiful grade II listed building, see stunning artworks, chat to artists, check out our new darkroom, the group exhibition, the famous fundraising auction, beers, coffee, cake...

Poster artwork by Yuko Edwards

11/03/2026

We've had a bit of a hiatus from Facebook, but we're back! We thought we'd kick off with some lovely studio spotlights...

--- Studio Spotlight ---
Karen Edwards

--- About & Inspirations ---

Karen Edwards has held a studio at Jamaica Street Studios for 25 years (give or take). Karen studied Fine Art in 1980, but has enjoyed drawing and painting for much longer, saying that “it was the only thing I was good at.” Inspired by walks, landscapes and places, her work reflects this, flitting between focusing on the sea, woodlands and still lifes. Karen struggled to name just 3 inspiring people, but after a browse of her large art book collection, settled on Turner, Levitan and Courbet.

--- Karen’s Creative Process ---

Karen works mostly with oil, but will often start a new work with a sketch. Rarely working from photographs, Karen creates work from a memory, often after some time has passed. Karen likes to mix together places and memories, creating a “collage” of multiple memories, for example taking a sky from a woodland and placing this above a memory of the sea. Using many layers of oil, and working for a long time on one piece, Karen makes many changes along the way. She describes only being able to let go of a piece when it finally stops saying to her that there is something wrong.

--- Find Out More ---

https://www.rwa.org.uk/blogs/artists/karen-edwards

Address

39 Jamaica Street
Bristol
BS28JP

Website

http://www.jamaicastreetstudios.co.uk/

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