Visual Arts

The Gallery

Rooted in our island culture and deeply engaged with international contemporary dialogue, An Tobar Gallery aims to be a vibrant focal point for diverse visual, material, and cultural practices.

Hosting three or four curated exhibitions each year, with work from a broad spectrum of practices.
Our programming spans from internationally recognised names to emerging artists embarking on their first solo exhibitions. Featured works vary widely, celebrating technical installations like the Society of Scottish Artist's Life With Water (aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goal 14), the rich diversity of Glasgow Print Studio's The Love of Print, and the depth of Jemima Hall’s Seaweed Shelter.

The artistic theme for 2026 is UN Sustainabilty Goal 15, Life on Land. We have begun the year with Calum Wallis The Ground Shakes which traces a geological journey across Scotland, Wallis follows the Highland Boundary and Great Glen fault lines as markers through a landscape in perpetual flux. In the summer we have Eve Campbell with Transit, a study of the West Coast of Scotland with questions of transience and sustainability, and lastly to come we have The World We Live In from a group of artists and scientists who travelled together, on a North Atlantic Island Residency.

We regularly host Work In Progress exhibitions by local artists, and we offer advice on how to apply, create, and install exhibitions, get in touch if this is of interest to you.

We also have a fully equiped Production Suite for artists to use free of charge. The suite includes equipment to create film, animation, sound, digital work, and digital photography,

Workshops

An Tobar runs an ongoing programme of workshops and commissions. We have many art and craft and cross-discipline workshop projects that run throughout the year with our Creative Learning team. In the past two years we have run Seaweed Foraging Walks, an artist’s residency and print workshop with Bryan Angus, and this year we have Pottery, Life Drawing, Drawing with Calum Wallis, Photography with Ben Douglas and Textile and Sustainability with Rhona Jack workshops.

Commissions

We regularly commission new work and you will find various commissioned pieces around the buildings, including work by Erlend Tait above the entrance to An Tobar and Pinky Maclure’s stained galss window by the Snug. We have also commissioned a spectacular mural by Glasgow based artist Ellie Mills for our Charlotte Aitken Trust Writer’s Studio. Our commissions have also extended into the landscape to include Emma Herman-Smith’s FANK on Loch Frisa and sculpture on the Ross of Mull, Andrea Geile’s The Chlorophylls at Lettermore and Calum Wallis’ Framed Photography project, as part of our artist’s led workshops, in summer 2026.

Community

Our spaces around the buildings and An Tobar Café provide a further opportunity for local artists to exhibit and sell their work. Each year we host the Highland Art Prize showcasing local artwork and the Tobermory High School Creative and Technical Learning exhibitions.

Projects and collaborations

RSA200: Celebrating Together

An Tobar presents a programme of screenings and a life drawing class hosted by George Donald RSA, as part of RSA200: Celebrating Together — a programme exploring how artists trace life in motion through film, drawing, and the enduring power of observation. See our Join In section for details.

An Tobar Art Room
An Tobar Art Room is availabe for use by artists, we are hosting pottery and life-drawing classes in 2026, see our what’s on page for details.

Society of Scottish Artists - Satellites programme

An Tobar and Mull Theatre’s visual arts curator is the Society of Scottish Artists Satellite Coordinator for 2026, a programme devised in April 2020 as a way of connecting the SSA with all the diverse regions of Scotland. Each area has its own ‘satellite’ acting locally as ears and eyes. They inform the Society about art events and opportunities in their areas, potential exhibition spaces and anything else that they feel may be of interest to SSA members. 

An Fenten | An Tobar (The well) Artist’s Exchange 2026. Mull + Cornwall

This artist’s exchange connects artists working in two geographically and culturally distinct, yet closely related, regions—both shaped by their landscapes, communities, seasonality, and relationship to tourism. The project offers space for artists to share ideas, develop new work, and build relationships across distance. In partnership with CAMP (Contemporary Art Membership Portal) and Creative Kernow.

An Tobar Gallery is a member of the Scottish Contemporary Art Network

Own Art

Own Art is a national initiative that makes buying contemporary art and craft affordable by providing interest-free credit for the purchase of original work. You can find more information here