BROAD brush strokes, vivid colours and a sense of place – those are the characteristics of David Bomberg’s paintings, which depict the rolling hills of Toledo and the urban sprawl of London among other settings.

Bomberg, born in 1890, was the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, who moved to the East End of London when he was five. He studied at the Westminster School of Art under Walter Sickert and later at the Slade School of Fine Art.

He was a pioneer of early modernism, creating a body of expressionistic landscape paintings and drawings following his experiences during the First World War, where he served on the Western Front and lost his brother in the trenches.

He was disregarded by the British art establishment until after his death in 1957, when his work increased in value.

It was another three decades before he achieved widespread recognition, when the Tate Gallery mounted a retrospective in 1988.

This Towner exhibition brings together significant works from the artist’s almost 40-year period of painting and drawing in landscape. From the 1920s to the late 1950s, Bomberg spent time abroad in Spain, Cyprus and Palestine as well our own capital city and Cornwall. In Palestine, disenchanted with the “machine age” as a result of his war experiences, he combined the modernist geometric style of his pre-war work with the observation of the English landscape school.

War shaped his work again during the Blitz. Bomberg produced a series of paintings and charcoal drawings of a ravaged London around St Paul’s Cathedral. One of these studies was worked into the oil painting Evening In The City Of London, 1944. Although these works did not lead to further commissions from the War Artists Committee, some now reside in the collections of the Imperial War Museum and the Tate.

David Bomberg: A Sense Of Place, is on display at the Towner Art Gallery in College Road, Eastbourne, until September 25 (Tuesday-Sunday 10am-5pm, free, 01323 434670).

The landscape theme continues through the work of Marcus Harvey, taking a wry look at what it means to be British.

His exhibition, entitled Inselaffe, takes its name from a German word meaning “Island Monkeys” – originally a derogatory, but light-hearted, term to describe the British.

Harvey’s work is a series of fusion paintings that bridge the romance of painting and the surety of photography.

His landscapes include white cliffs looming up from the sea, the brutish expressionism of his painting working hard against the counterpoint of photography.

Rather than emulate photography through painting, Harvey uses photography as a backdrop for some extreme painting.

Other work takes on a tough but humorous edge where he forges motifs and emblems relating to notions of Britishness and embroiled history such as militaria and joke shop knick-knacks turned into portraits of historical figures from Nelson to Margaret Thatcher, Napoleon to Tony Blair.

Yet more work of ceramic sculpture is unapologetic and powerful, political yet ambiguous, reflecting Harvey’s concerns with subjects such as national identity and masculinity.

Jerwood Gallery director Liz Gilmore says the exhibition will show “Harvey’s significant contribution to British art”.

The exhibition is on display at the Jerwood Gallery in Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings, from tomorrow until October 16 (Tuesday-Sunday 11am-5pm, £9/£8/£3.50, 01424 728377).

More towards sculpture, Laura Ford’s work is on show at Pallant House. Called Beauty In The Beast, it features the uncanny imagined creatures for which she is recognised.

Using Jean Cocteau’s film Beauty And The Beast as a starting point, it is the latest in a series of outdoor sculpture exhibitions in the Gallery’s courtyard garden.

Born in Cardiff in 1961, Ford studied at the Bath Academy of Art and the Chelsea College of Art. She is known for the playful quality of her work in which she creates characters that have a dark edge and blur the boundaries between animal and human expression. The bronze works on display include Espaliered Girl (2007), Lion (2014) and Behemoth (2016).

Ford enjoys “the difference in the way audiences interact with work when they are just sitting around having lunch or a coffee”.

The exhibition is on display at Pallant House, in Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings, from until October 2 (Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm, Thursday 10am-8pm, Sunday/bank holidays 11am-5pm, prices vary, 01243 774557).

Other works get a second airing. Hove Museum in New Church Road is re-hanging some of its fine art piece as part of an exhibition called Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor.

This family-friendly display explores how artists see others at work, from fishermen to ballerinas. The pieces on show date from the 17th to the 20th centuries and all come from the Brighton and Hove’s Fine Art Collection.

The exhibition runs until next summer (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10am-5pm, Sunday 2pm-5pm, closed Wednesdays except bank holidays, free, 0300 029 0900).

And for a taste of textiles, Fashion Cities Africa continues its run at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery until January 8, 2017.

Visit townereastbourne.org.uk, jerwoodgallery.org, pallant.org.uk and brightonmuseums.org.uk.