The Clocktower Gallery X UCA, June 2026 - October 2027

The Clocktower Gallery puts UCA creativity in Canterbury city centre through a rotating programme of exhibitions and artist talks by students and staff.

Current Exhibition: June-Sept 2026 

Eszter Novák opens the Clocktower Gallery X UCA with ‘Obscurities Overheard’. 

Obscurities Overheard is a playful literary installation exploring some of the strangest words in the English language through illustration and storytelling. The exhibition features five tunnel book illustrations, each interpreting a different obscure word through humour and visual metaphor. 

Alongside each piece, visitors can discover the word’s meaning, synonyms, and etymology,  written in Eszter’s playful yet academic style. Connected to Canterbury’s literary history and the language of Christopher Marlowe, the exhibition celebrates the strange, theatrical, and often humorous side of the English language.

Ignivomous exhibition, Canterbury

More about the exhibition  

Obscurities Overheard… through history, through time. Some alive, but forgotten, some ready to be resurrected! Welcome to the realm of strange English words! 

This installation began as a research project for Eszter’s undergraduate dissertation, where she explored how visual humour affects memorability. That research developed into the illustrated dictionary Obscurities, followed by the multisensory installation Obscurities Observed at Rochester House, and now Obscurities Overheard at the Clocktower Gallery. 

The Clocktower Gallery exhibition explores five obscure English words through tunnel book illustrations, storytelling, and audio. Each piece is accompanied by the word’s meaning, synonyms, and etymology, written in the artist’s playful yet academic voice. Connected to Canterbury’s literary history and the language of Christopher Marlowe, the work celebrates the theatrical, peculiar, and unexpectedly expressive nature of the English language. 

Accessible QR codes throughout the exhibition link to an audio guide (coming soon) read by the artist, designed to make the installation more accessible while adding another interpretive layer to the experience. 

The installation also marks the release of Obscurities, available to pre-order now, and will be published in June. 

Plus, visitors interested in a more tactile and auditory experience of five additional words can also explore Obscurities Observed at UCA’s Rochester House building between 12–24 June, Monday – Friday 10am – 4pm or Saturdays 10am – 3pm. It's just five minutes walk from the Clocktower Gallery.  

About the artist 

Eszter Novák is a Hungarian-British (“HunBrit” for short) artist, illustrator, and graphic designer with an incurable fascination for the weird, the comically obscure, the charmingly odd, and the wonderfully peculiar. 

Before moving to the United Kingdom, she studied visual merchandising and window dressing in Budapest. She later completed both an Art Diploma and a Higher National Diploma in the UK, graduating with distinction before enrolling as a top-up student in Visual Communication at the University for the Creative Arts. 

Alongside her studies, Eszter has worked for nine years as a freelance graphic designer under the name The Inspired Fox, specialising primarily in layouts, editorial design, and visually engaging communication. Her multidisciplinary approach combines influences from graphic design, illustration, spatial design, and storytelling. 

Having had firsthand experience with people with different needs, accessibility remains an important consideration in her work to encourage wider engagement. 

You can find more of her work and ongoing projects via LinkedIn and on Instagram at @theinspiredfox.illustration and @theinspiredfox.graphicdesign. 

About the Clocktower Gallery 

Inspired by New York's iconic venue founded by Alanna Heiss in 1972 the Clocktower Gallery offers a new way of experiencing art installed in a historic landmark. Heiss was a pioneering force in the early alternative‑spaces movement that reshaped how art could be presented. Her vision proved that unexpected, historic spaces could become powerful settings for contemporary work - an idea that continues to inspire artists and curators around the world. Prominently located at the top of Canterbury's busy high street the Clocktower Gallery reflects the way the historic city works in harmony with contemporary creativity and new ideas.