Event type: Exhibition

There Seemed a Strangeness…

An exhibition of contemporary landscape painting by Paul Mellor and John Elcock at Editions Gallery.

Paul Mellor’s paintings explore history, loss, and mortality as he seeks to question the idea of both private and collective memories, their illusion and ambiguity. Taking his personal memories – of places (real or imagined) – as a starting point. He uses source materials from the internet, film stills, postcards and his old photographs to affect a distance from the subject so the final painting is viewed atmospherically rather than descriptively.

John Elcock is a visual artist based in Liverpool with a multidisciplinary practice centred on painting and conceptual sculpture. He is a founder member of the Material Matters collective.

From Yorkshire, Scotland, Wales to the Wirral, the artists have gathered a series of enigmatic yet strangely beautiful paintings that shed new light both on the familiar and the unknown. The works are accompanied by a selection of found objects, photographs and other ephemera, specially chosen by the artists to provide a glimpse of respective journeys towards their practical realisation in the studio.

Open weekdays. (Closed Saturday & Sunday)
Editions Gallery, 16 Cook Street, Liverpool.

The Sefton Open 2024

The Sefton Open is an annual exhibition celebrating the creativity and artistic talent across the borough.

The exhibition takes over The Atkinson’s art gallery in an eclectic salon-style hang and features a wide variety of works from individual artists and local groups. Each year the exhibition attracts thousands of visitors to The Atkinson.

The Atkinson’s longstanding partner, Southport Palette Club, select the work from individual artists for the Sefton Open. The club was formed in 1921 to champion the work of local artists and this will be their 98th annual exhibition.

Julia Midgley: Bicentenary Sketchbook ...

Liverpool John Moores University will look back on its milestone Bicentenary year at an exhibition of work by artist Julia Midgley created during her residency throughout 2023. 

As Artist in Residence, Julia visited the LJMU campus regularly during the year to capture everything from open days to public lectures, to student projects and graduation celebrations, using her distinctive documentary and reportage style to create a poignant record of a historic year.  

Julia created around 140 individual drawings with watercolour from her time on campus, some of which have been curated for the special exhibition which will also feature large-scale reproductions of the original works, Julia’s sketchbooks and her art materials.   

In bringing the exhibition to fruition, Julia has worked in collaboration with the Bluecoat’s Director of Cultural Legacies Bryan Biggs, one of LJMU’s Bicentenary Honorary Fellows, and final year History of Art and Museum Studies student Madeleine Pedley, brought onto the project through an innovative internship opportunity through the university’s on-campus recruitment agency Unitemps.  

Award-winning artist Julia was a Reader in Documentary Drawing within LJMU’s School of Art and Design and a member of staff for 26 years before retiring in 2013. Julia is also a practising printmaker and is a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy of Art’s Summer Exhibition (12 occasions). She has been the recipient of national awards for drawing, painting and printmaking, and is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers and the Royal Watercolour Society. 

Open daily, 8.30am – 4.30pm, except weekends and Bank Holidays.

Bread and Roses

“For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!”

Bread and Roses was a poem written in 1912 by James Oppenheim, about women and children striking for better wages and working conditions.

The metaphor of Bread and Roses is that we all need bread to feed our bodies, but we also need to be nourished by life’s roses: art, music, literature, education, and nature.

As the cost-of-living crisis continues, dot-art wanted to curate a group exhibition that showcases the best of affordable art. This show is dedicated to featuring original works under £200 and limited editions under £100. Owning art does not have to break the bank and quality artworks do not have to have eye watering prices.

This exhibition features a wide array of imagery and styles from over 20 dot-art Artist Members. On display you will find still life, cyanotypes, abstract paintings, lithographs, and charcoal portraits. A show for everyone, ranging from the traditional to the conceptual.

Artists such as Caroline Race have responded to the history of the poem and its historical moment. “I have produced a series of affordable paper lithographs on kozo tissue with 22 carat gold leaf embossed onto Fabriano print paper. A series of objects representing the strength of women and their fight for fairness and equality during the suffragette movement of the early 1900’s. I am using warm red tones to represent the blood spilt during their fight, the gold leaf representing their struggle for equal pay and fairer working conditions.”

Susan Cantrill Williams reflects on her personal connection to this exhibition’s theme. “My bread was provided by my Grandmother Hanna Pritchard, an active member of the labour party who marched for women’s rights in Birmingham and ran her own business in a rough part of Aston. She enabled education for my mother and art education for myself, allowing us to experience the roses.”

At dot-art, they are always affordable and have payment plans for works over £250 because they know the value of treasuring special pieces of art by local artists, so do their very best to create the best buying conditions for art lovers.

As the poem says: “Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses”.

All artworks are for sale.

Join us for the Private View of the exhibition on Thursday 4th April from 5pm-7pm.

All welcome, but please register here: dot-art-breadandroses.eventbrite.co.uk

The dot-art Gallery can be found at 14 Queen Avenue, Castle Street, Liverpool, L2 4TX (just 5 minutes’ walk from Liverpool One).

Opening times: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am-6pm

The exhibition runs 5th April – 1 June 2024.

If Walls Could Talk

Start-Yard showcases artist Daniel Meakin’s solo exhibition of paintings “If Walls Could Talk”.

To preview the exhibition, Daniel will do a Live Painting Performance, allowing spectators to meet him and witness his work in progress in situ.

The exhibition will run until the end of May and the paintings are available to purchase.

The Town is the Gallery Launch

Join Convenience Gallery for their brand new programme launch at 39 Borough Pavement, Birkenhead, CH41 2YE on the 22nd March 2024 launching their most ambitious programme to date, The Town is the Gallery.

As a Community/ Contemporary arts organisation, Convenience will animate Birkenhead Town locations across the 2024 Borough of Culture Year for Wirral, including reanimating a high street shop, alongside locations such as Birkenhead Priory, Birkenhead Library and others with free to access arts exhibitions workshops and experiences all made and designed by local people.

This project will create a number of new artworks and culture opportunities across Birkenhead and beyond during 2024 and 2025. This first night will be a not to be missed celebration and launch party.

Featuring:

  • Newly commissioned exhibitions of works by Elisa Sallis & Ella Matthews, and Sorrell Kerrison.
  • A preview of the The Town Is The Gallery programme with this the first venue of the project.
  • Queensway Collective DJs and launch of partnership with Convenience.
  • Wirral borough of Culture collaboration, Wirral MET and Tomorrow’s women mapping project with Johanna Wilson
  • Convenience Store pop up
  • Bar, Dancing and much more.

Launch night details:

Date: 22nd March
Time: 4pm – late
Where: 39 Borough Pavement, Birkenhead, CH41 2YE
Cost: FREE (subsidised by Borough of Culture) Donation tickets also available to support future culture opportunities on Merseyside with Convenience.

Exhibitions and space will be open after the launch on this schedule:
Wednesday: 10am – 4pm
Thursday: 10am – 4pm
Friday: 10am – 4pm
Saturday: 10am – 4pm
CLOSED: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday – please contact to arrange special visitation.

With thanks to Wirral Council, Kindred LCR, ESA and all of the artists and local people making this happen. Join them for the biggest party of 2024 (so far).

More about the incredible creative involved in the first part of The Town is the Gallery public programming:

Elisa Sallis and Ella Matthews (ELLSQUARED) presents “On the Waltzers”

“‘On The Waltzers’, is an interactive and immersive arts installation created by artist and curator duo ELLSQUARED. You are invited to participate in a series of classic fair games for the chance to win hand-crafted prizes made by the artists with the intention of exploring how exhibitions can be more accessible. ‘On The Waltzers’ implores the viewer to not only engage with the installation but to become a part of the work itself.

Sorrell Kerrison presents “Chwarae Teg / Fair Play”

Sorrell’s new Exhibition invites you to ponder the timeless question: “When do we stop playing for the sake of enjoyment and always search for productivity? Is it a byproduct of the capitalist dilemma, or simply an inevitable aspect of aging that we forget to find joy in the simple act of playing and exploring? Through this thought-provoking exhibition, Kerrison delves into the complexities of human nature and the intrinsic value of play.

Wirral Met college animation with illustration: Student showcase

We are very pleased to announce a new collaboration with WMC, across the past semester students were tasked to explore their creative relationship to the surrounding of Hamilton Square and Wirral and make their own response through drawings and map making. Students undertook a life brief with the Gallery team and we are excited to present the creative outcomes of this project.

Queensway collective partnership:

We are excited to announce our official partnership with Queenways collective. Queensway is a community dedicated to platforming female, non-binary and LGBTQIA+ electronic music artists. Queensway electronic artists will be soundtracking The town is the Gallery across 2024.

Convenience Store:

Convenience will be bringing their Convenience Store to the launch and which will then be open from the 22nd March to the 20th April. Highlighting some of Merseyside’s best creatives. The Convenience Store was something we set up in 2023 as an additional way to support northern artists to sell work and have sustainable income. We have shown this at the Manchester Contemporary and in Collaboration with the M&S Bank Arena, with this event being our 3rd pop up – you can see all the works on the site: www.conveniencegallery.store . All work will only be available until April 20th.

Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experie...

Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience – produced by Annerin Productions and Paquin Entertainment Group – blends more than 300 of the post-Impressionist icon’s paintings with cutting-edge technology and a specially curated musical soundtrack to tell the story of one of history’s most influential artists.

It has already been seen by more than five million people across the United States and Canada. And now it is coming to the UK, with the unmissable show being staged in Liverpool on its famous waterfront at Exhibition Centre Liverpool (for a limited run) from 27 June to 14 July.

In Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience, the artist’s spectacular paintings are liberated from their two-dimensional realms and rendered into three-dimensional, fully immersive scenes that swirl and flow with colour and movement – exhilarating in every sense.

Wander through iconic works as they come alive around you, including The Starry Night, Sunflowers and Terrace of a Café at Night, and be enveloped by a selection of his revealing self-portraits which might just blink back at you.

Visitors are taken on a journey through the artist’s world from darkness to light, enhanced by his own dreams, thoughts and words set to a stirring symphonic score in this sensational narrative experience which appeals to a whole new generation of art enthusiasts and Van Gogh fans alike.

Beginning in the Introduction Hall, visitors connect with Vincent van Gogh through personal letters he wrote to his brother, and greatest supporter, Theo. Visitors then move into the heart of the exhibition – the Immersive Room – where Van Gogh’s paintings are freed from their frames to dominate the space and fully immerse the audience in the incredible detail of his work, awakening their imagination in a playful and dreamlike way as they are enveloped in colourful flowers, cafés and stunning landscapes, shifting and swirling across the projection-swathed walls and floor.

Even if you are not very familiar with Van Gogh’s incredible paintings, this is an excellent access point to his world, and a way to connect to the artist behind the art.

There is also a chance to take part in special Saturday morning yoga sessions inside the exhibition itself. Meanwhile VIP Experience tickets include selected Beyond Van Gogh merchandise along with flexible arrival times and fast track entry.

 

Beneath The Surface

The LAKE Gallery is proud to present ‘Beneath the Surface’, a collection of new paintings from the studios of Nina Archer and Clare Maria Wood.

Both artists have a strong association with landscape; Nina with the hills around her south Shropshire home and Clare with the moors and coastal edges of her native north Yorkshire. Working intuitively, layers and textures are gradually built up to create striking abstract pieces which offer a look beyond what is normally seen.

Nina Archer is an abstract painter, living and working in the borderlands of the Welsh Marches. Her work is very much about her experience of living and working in a diverse landscape combining Welsh and English cultural influences with a distinctive geography of ridgeways, forested valleys, mountains and rivers.

“I spend a lot of time walking and observing elements of the landscape that have become important to me. When I am back in the studio I develop these observations through abstracted forms often defined by the dramatic light, black shapes, the darkness and contrast of the forested valleys, accents of colour and the textural feel of this unique landscape.”

Clare Maria Wood was brought up by the coast in North Yorkshire. She studied Fine Art Painting at Wimbledon School of Art and Goldsmiths University in the 90s, and, more recently, Printmaking at the Curwen Print Centre with Stanley Jones and Chloe Cheese.

“The worlds above and below the ocean’s surface have been my most recent inspiration, which serve as a metaphor for human interactions about love, loss, and hope. I walk each day with my dog, in all weathers. To be at the edge of the elements, where light shifts and dances; reliant and yet independent of the darkness, is exciting. This immersive ritual of walking through familiar terrain allows me time to reflect whilst acquiring sensory information on the way. “

The gallery will be hosting a preview evening on Thursday 7th March between 6pm and 8pm, and all are welcome.

You’ll find the LAKE gallery in the heart of West Kirby, a couple of minutes walk from the train station.

Beneath the Surface
Intuitive responses to the landscape

Nina Archer
Clare Maria Wood

Thursday 7th March – Saturday 6th April
Opening Times: Thursday – Saturday, 10am – 4pm

The LAKE gallery
52 Grange Road, West Kirby, Wirral, CH48 4EF
0151 625 6000
thelakegallery.co.uk

Gaia in Birkenhead Park

Organized as a part of the Wirral Borough of Culture 2024 programmed events, Birkenhead Park will feature the artwork “Gaia” created by the incredible UK artist Luke Jerram.

The floating Planet Earth replica measures seven meters across its diameter and slowly rotates like our Earth, allowing everyone to enjoy the detailed view of the Earth’s surface based on the 120dpi NASA imagery.

Gaia in Greek Mythology translates to the personification of the Earth, connecting to Luke Jerram’s objectives of his artwork to gain a deeper connection with our Earth and realize how beautiful and irreplaceable our home is.

Gaia will be displayed just past the Grand Entrance, which is the northeast entrance of Birkenhead Park (the corner of Park Road North and Park Road East), warmly welcoming visitors with the remarkable art piece. Alongside Gaia, Birkenhead Park is excited to include community cultural events across the 3 day event, including local artists and community groups to participate within the awareness of our planet. Dance Around The Globe will start the event on Tuesday 28 May, showcasing an array of dance talent and creativity from local dance schools and groups based in the Wirral. Love Your Earth Day is the second day of the event, Wednesday 29 May. The second day of celebration welcomes Wirral environmental artists and community groups to the park to share sustainable art and address topics about the environment. The final day of celebration, Thursday 30 May is Wirral Sings, where Birkenhead Park invites Wirral singer/ songwriters to the stage to sing their hearts out. Finally as a special treat, on the second and third day of the event, a pedaled Stephenson’s rocket replica, accompanied with six pantomime horses will be touring the park across peak hours of the event.

The featured Gaia display presented in Birkenhead Park is a fantastic opportunity to view the Earth from new heights and to discover how magnificent and valuable our planet is.

In The Window: Conversations In craft

Our In the Window displays throughout 2024 will include a changing selection of pieces ‘in conversation’ by makers working across ceramics, glass, wood, textiles and jewellery.

Throughout 2024.