Artists Open Houses: Brighton’s alternative to gallery going

I’m standing in a palatial flat in one of the most beautiful squares in Brighton, in a huge whitewashed room flooded with natural light. The lucky man who lives here, Ted Davis, is showing me around. His home isn’t usually open to the public, but this month anyone can wander in. Ted is a photographer — rather a good one, in fact. His perceptive portraits adorn these walls, alongside his still lifes of wilting flowers,  and for the next four weekends his splendid apartment in Palmeira Square will become a temporary exhibition space. It’s part of an annual festival here in Brighton called Artists Open Houses, in which hundreds of local artists like Ted transform their homes into pop-up galleries. ‘It’s like hosting a party,’ he tells me. ‘It’s much less formal than a gallery.’ Last year, he entertained several thousand people here.

Artists Open Houses is a great way of bringing together artists and art-lovers. If you’re an artist, you don’t have to audition for a gallery. If you’re an art-lover, you can meet the artist, and see their work in situ. And if you see something you like, you don’t need to pay a fat commission to some middleman. It works for buyers and for sellers. Everybody wins.

Although it seems like a modern concept, Artists Open Houses actually began way back in 1982, when a painter called Ned Hoskins opened up his house during the Brighton Festival to show his work and the work of like-minded artists. This innovation proved so popular — especially with punters who didn’t usually go to galleries — that his arty neighbours followed suit. Since then, his DIY scheme has grown and grown. Last year a quarter of a million people visited 200 houses around Brighton, spending more than a million pounds en route.