Facing the Planet

Facing the Planet opens at God's House Tower on Thursday 30 July, a pop-up exhibition by painter Tessa Coe and writer Jane Coyle that runs through to Monday 3 August. It's a small, focused show — ten of Coe's paintings, each paired with a short piece of prose by Coyle — and they're describing it as "reflections on place, discovery and memory."

Coe's paintings are worked in a mosaic style, and the subject matter comes from the landscape she knows best: the meadows, the river and the estuary around Nursling, on the river Test. Coyle has selected ten of these pieces and written a brief story to go with each one, so the two work side by side rather than one just illustrating the other. It's the kind of thing that works best when you take your time with it, moving from painting to text and back again.

If you want to hear from the people behind it, there's a celebration event on Saturday 1 August from 14:00 to 16:00. Coe and Coyle will both be there to talk about the work, and one of the prose pieces will be read aloud. That part is free, though you'll need to book your place in advance.

The exhibition itself is free to walk in, and it's held in the Crawford Room at God's House Tower, Town Quay Road, SO14 2NY. It's open Thursday 10:00-16:00, Friday and Saturday 10:00-17:00, Sunday 10:00-16:00, and Monday 09:00-16:00.