Jo is delighted to share the theme for THE SUSSEX 2025 with you all. 

It felt appropriate to focus on our own environments, allowing a space for observation and appreciation of the minutia of everyday life. An opportunity to observe everyday life, be it food, friends and family, your neighborhood, working environment, leisure activities, or the staples of everyday life in this time that we are all living in. 

The artistic representation of everyday life allows an insight into the sociality, objects, and work of moments in time. Throughout the centuries, it has often been referred to as Genre Art. It can be realistic, imagined, or romanticised by you, the artist. 

There have been great periods of Genre Art throughout history, and genre art has been used as an umbrella term for artworks depicting various categories. 

• Still life 

• Marine 

• Architectural 

• Animal 

• General scenes of society  

In education, most of history is taught by important people such as kings, queens, sovereigns, presidents, prime ministers, dictators, and other types of leaders. Ordinary people and their lives don’t receive that much attention. By celebrating and depicting the art of everyday life, we invite you, the artist, to elevate and share your own observations of L'art de la vie quotidienne. 

 We thought it might be helpful to expand upon how Genre Art has been depicted and changed over the centuries. Read on for our brief, potted history of the art of everyday life.

Women undertaking ordinary tasks have historical significance, such as Johannes Vermeer's The Milkmaid evokes the quiet absorption that characterizes his work. He is known and celebrated for his ability to make the ordinary extraordinary.

Wiliam Powell Firth was a prolific Victorian painter who depicted contemporary scenes in the 1850s. Firth was fascinated with the brief moments in his time with ordinary people and captured these moments through his paintings. Firth focused on scenes of everyday life, anticipating the impressionists and what became their rich depictions of everyday spaces of modern life, such as cafes and theatres.

British artists such as Walter Sickart and others associated with the Camden Town Group focused on urban modernity. They explored the subject through honest scenes of London bars, theatres, and music halls.

Domestic interiors were frequently depicted in drab and dreary ways during this time. Harold Gilman’s interiors, made in the early years of the 20th century, compressed space, making them feel compressed and claustrophobic.

In America, Edward Hopper produced similar examinations of modern life. His purposely dimly lit works are infused with a greater sense of alienation despite being set in busy city locations.

Post-war artist Ruskin Spear made socialist realistic art, affectionately observing and depicting pubs in his much-beloved borough of Hammersmith, London.

Spear taught many of the ‘Kitchen Sink Artists’ who were active in the 1950s and committed to creating a version of hyper-realism in which every ordinary, banal object or person was celebrated. Art critic David Sylvester wrote of them in 1954 that their subject was ‘Everything but the kitchen sink—the kitchen sink too.’

In our time, and more recently, Caroline Walker has turned her attention to quietly intimate, voyeuristic depictions of women at work. Her observations and studies of women at work in contemporary society include a poignant focus on mothers and childbirth, an entirely everyday occurrence that we are all the product of. She is actively expanding the art of the everyday genre, art showing the stuff of life.

L'art de la vie quotidienne: the art of everyday life subject matter can be varied and has been over the centuries, from milkmaids in the 17th century, fleeting glimpses into family life, to busy community everyday occurrences. It is a theme that has evolved over many years. Marcel Duchamp made art from a ceramic urinal and found objects such as soup cans immortalized by Andy Warhol. Mattresses use, and emotional exploration of their pleasure have been explored by Sarah Lucas and Dame Tracey Emin.

The genre's contemporary expansion and development can be traced back to village fairs and taverns in the 17th century. We can’t wait to see your response to THE SUSSEX 2025 theme.

We have moved the annual exhibition to November to better fit into our yearly program of exhibitions and showcases around the county.

After two years of challenges with mail (hawks), we have moved the submission process to our website. After you have completed the submission form and paid for your submission, a link to submit your artwork image will be sent out separately via email.

We love you like jelly tots and listen to and hear your frustrations.

The number of entries is capped at 2500, and once they have sold, there will be no last-minute entries. Once you've filled in the form and purchased your entry/ies, you will be sent a link to the upload site. Make sure you upload your artwork image by the 31st of August 2025 at 23.59. We will send reminders and prompts.

It is now open for submissions