About Arina Izmestieva
Arina Izmestieva is a London-based collector, painter and ceramicist, and the founder of Funny Weather, an outdoor exhibition platform based in Hampshire. Established in 2026, Funny Weather was born from a clear vision: to create a setting where sculpture and installation can be experienced at the scale and in the environment for which they are intended, while introducing a new generation of collectors to sculpture in a more accessible and engaging way.
Arina's approach to collecting is informed by a deep sensitivity to materiality, developed through her own artistic practice and her studies in sculpture at New York University. As both a collector and practitioner, she brings a distinctive dual perspective to the platform, combining an understanding of the making process with a commitment to presenting works in dialogue with landscape, allowing material, form and environment to speak for themselves.
Through Funny Weather, Arina is cultivating a space for thoughtful encounters between art, nature and collecting, championing artists whose practices engage with sculpture, installation and the physical world.
About Funny Weather
Funny Weather is an annual outdoor exhibition platform set within the gardens and forest of Hampshire, founded and curated by Arina Izmestieva. Named with a knowing nod to the British climate and all the unpredictability that entails, Funny Weather returns sculpture and installation to the landscape from which their materials came and invites a new generation of viewers and collectors to encounter ambitious work in the open air.
The platform exists to give sculpture and installation the space and scale to be viewed in. Each edition, a new group of artists is invited to respond to a new theme, with works sited across the Hampshire gardens and forest in direct dialogue with their environment. Funny Weather champions sculptors and installation artists whose practice demands room to breathe, materials that belong outdoors, and viewers who are willing to move through a landscape rather than stand in front of a wall.
Central to the platform is a commitment to opening large-scale sculpture collecting to a new generation. Works are available at a genuine range that connects new voices with new audiences, and makes the experience of collecting ambitious work accessible to those encountering it for the first time.