RuptureXIBIT is an inclusive, artist-run space/art incubator located in Hampton Wick, London, home to Art Mentoring & Coaching workshops, intensive immersive Residencies, and experimental exhibitions.

Once a quarter we host an Invitational Residency for a Visual Artists: these month-long, sponsored residencies are for artists with more established practices who want to take the time and space to develop new work.  

These residencies are FREE, and offer the artist in residence connection to the Rupture community, and an opportunity to talk through new work and work in progress that is pushing or advancing or breaking their practice.  

We’re currently accepting proposals  winter 2025 & spring 2026.

These residencies do not require artists to complete any work or hold a show.

The purpose stays with PRACTICE: pushing, developing and opening.

The only requirement is that the artist host an artist’s talk and join in our quarterly Open Studios Salon Event.

We’re currently accepting residency proposals for our 350 sq. ft. High Street shop-front gallery for winter 2025 & spring 2026. 

Our sponsored invitational residency for visual artists consists of four weeks of studio/gallery space.

It includes access to our workshops and group crits, and the more informal support that comes with working from the studio.

Plus, we offer promotion of the residency and open studio across numerous platforms and full support from our experienced in-house team.

What can you gain from a Residency at RuptureXIBIT?

Over the past five years, the Rupture team has worked with over 1,000 international artists at all stages of their careers, providing a platform for artistic growth and collaboration.  

We meet each artist where they need to be met, and provide the time, space, and rigour to examine and expand individual practices. 

We offer these residencies because all artists of all kinds need silence and solitude in which to work, but when you pick up your head at the end of the day, we also need community, to know we aren’t making work in outer space.

Sometimes we need to talk about the work, sometimes we just need to be around other artists who share a commitment to the ongoing development of practice.

Residents at Rupture gain a sense of strength, purpose, and permission.

While we believe all artists should make a living selling their work, we believe that the selling of work in the current environment has alienated artists from their authentic practice and turned them first into commodity makers – this hollowness burns out artists as they struggle to ‘succeed’ before they even know why they are making work.

Barriers to practice include a lack of support, time and space. Rupture offers all, at all price points, to all artists.

About our Mentors

Our mentors are Kate Howe (MA RCA Painting, MA Kingston University Creative Writing, BA Art History, AA Technical Theatre, currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Leeds in Research by Practice),

Sally is a Painter-Stainers Scholar and has a Diploma and Post-Diploma in Figurative Painting from The Heatherley School of Fine Art.

Dr. James Miller (PhD, and published author, head of Creative Writing at Kingston University).

Dr. Anna Johnson (PhD, published author, tutor in creative writing at Kingston University).

All of us are professional educators with backgrounds in coaching, mentoring, teaching, and tutoring in our specific fields.

Within our coaching ethos is the idea that fresh eyes help mentees find their rhythm.

We often suggest our clients take a session with another coach so they get the broadest possible look at their practices.

Past participants have gone from working in one medium in a traditional and restricted manner to opening up to all sorts of working media, including performance, writing, installation, sound, video work, painting, and more.

Our program helps artists of all kinds find their voice and feel at home doing it.

Our artists and writers leave feeling ready to work, having met new artists to collaborate with, formed new ideas, and undersanding that they can do so much more than they originally thought. 

They leave Rupture charged and ready to work, full of new ideas and faith in their projects and skills.  

Every single artist who has been in residence with us is now showing work with other exhibitions and galleries across London and beyond.

Many create collaborative relationships with other artists that they meet whilst in residence here and go on to produce work together.

What is RuptureXIBIT Mentoring?

The problem is defining, living and shaping an authentic practice – understanding what practice is, what it can be, checking that it is authentic to the artist and does not only fulfil a commercial brief.

Our mentoring is not a one-size-fits-all, ten-point plan for how to get a gallery and sell your work.
Our mentoring is not a technical hack—three quick tips to make your work more engaging.
Our mentoring is bespoke to each artist, meeting them right where they are in their practice.

We work with every individual to understand what they want out of their life as an artist, what they are currently doing and feeling in their practice, identify their practice and where it is thin/inauthentic/prescribed, and help artists understand why they are unhappy with their status quo.

We help artists remove their own roadblocks to development, often focusing on several ingress points at once – does the artist need permission to take themselves seriously?

Do they need to stop performing ‘artist’ and looking for external validation?

Do they need to learn how to trust their work and their skillset?

Do they understand how to use research and references to build a scaffolding of practice? Do they understand that their practice is not the studio?

Do they know how to set the conditions which allow the work to arise? Do they know how to work from impulse rather than fully formed idea?

Working in workshop, and one on one, we help artists who haven’t got there on their own figure out the one thing that no one ever teaches you: we help them understand what their own particular practice and work are – why they are making, how they are making, and why it matters.

Who is this residency suitable for?

Solo applicants or small artists’ collectives who have established practices. 

What's on offer

• A four week residency in the front studio/gallery,
• An Open Studio Event on the final weekend of the residency
• Four 90 minute mentoring sessions with our resident artists Sally Minns and Kate Howe
• Support during your residency by our Project Manager
• Advertising of your Residency and Open Studio on our Social Media
• Coverage in our newsletter
• Advertisement of your open studio on prominent art sites including Art Rabbit and others
• Use of our Eventbrite booking system
• An opportunity to talk about your work to a wide and diverse audience of art lovers
• Flexibility for events in the space such as readings, talks, lectures, podcasts, catalogue launches, crits, drawing days, and workshops
• Emphasis is on the development of your practice and professional skills. We are not a traditional gallery
• Any sales during or resulting from the residency or open studio should be processed by the artist. However, RuptureXIBIT will take a 20% commission on every sale

Requirements

To apply we require the following:

• A written proposal for your residency (up to 500 words). This describes your concept for your residency and open studio event.
• Up to ten images of work. This is a portfolio of current work.
• A statement (up to 500 words) about why or how your practice will benefit from a mentoring residency at the RuptureXIBIT. This is where you can talk about how you hope to push yourself and your practice by using and showing in the space, and talk about experimental ideas
• We ask that you include the following with the proposal, should we accept your application:
• An artist or writer's bio (max 250 words)
• A brief description of your current work and practice (150 - 200 words)
• A brief description of your proposal for use on our website and social media (up to 250 words

What do I need to provide during the residency?

• All materials, including fixing,s during residency and open studio
• Requirement to regularly record your work in progress and share with our in-house marketing team weekly.

Documentation and visibility

Our media team is here on the ground and documents each artist’s progress along the way, posting to our channels (Substack and Instagram) as well as being interviewed by our Writer in Residence for our newsletter, which goes out to around 1500 people.

Our open studios event is a wonderful opportunity to meet our Rupture community of supporters, artists and the art-curious and enjoy talking about the work and the month at Rupture.

We also feature all artists on our website, as well as promoting events on Eventbrite.