Event type: Exhibition

Proximity

Stephen McCoy has spent 45 years living, working, and photographing on Merseyside. “Proximity” explores his deep connection with the people and places of the region, tracing the development of his photographic practice over the decades. The exhibition features a selection of works from his major projects, spanning from 1979 to the present, including two recent, ongoing sets of work.

From housing estates in Ainsdale to communities in Skelmersdale, from the demolition sites in Liverpool to the safe spaces of homes and gardens, from along the coastline to a touching and personal family journey – these projects, featuring a wide range of subjects and experimental ways of making pictures, celebrate the relationships that we create throughout our lives.

Stephen McCoy said: I have always felt that my best work shows a deep personal connection to the subject photographed, whether of people or place. A sense of place necessitates familiarity with an area; hence this exhibition is a distillation of a 45-year project, a continuing examination of my homeland, my Proximity.

For me photographs must have a balance between concept, technique and creativity. I do consider myself a documentary photographer, in the broadest sense; I photograph my view of the world and create order. Many of the photographs in the exhibition are from older projects and these have taken on a different kind of importance as time has passed.

Bedazzled

A selection of glamorous evening wear dating from the 1920s to today will be shown at Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight, Wirral. Showcasing 20 outfits, Bedazzled (26 October 2024 to 26 January 2025) celebrates the enduring popularity of beaded garments and explores the skills involved in making them.

The exhibition also provides an opportunity for National Museums Liverpool to present recently acquired items from the wardrobe of Leila Potter (1935 – 2022) for the first time. Leila was a successful businesswoman, charity campaigner and local councillor who spent much of her life living in Wirral and Cheshire. She had a passion for dazzling, sequinned items of clothing, usually featuring the colour pink.

Pauline Rushton, Head of Lady Lever Art Gallery, said: “Bedazzled is a riot of beads, sequins and sparkle – bringing a real dose of colour and glamour to the gallery over the festive period.

“We’re particularly excited to be showing some of Leila Potter’s 1980s items for the first time. Glitzy styles from this period were likely to have been influenced in part by popular American television programmes such as Dallas and Dynasty, where sequins and shoulder pads were synonymous with some of the leading female characters.”

The renewed appetite for dazzling evening wear in the 1980s followed the post-War period during which elaborate, beaded evening wear wasn’t part of mainstream fashion. It was still being made by the leading fashion houses, but wasn’t available or affordable to the majority of shoppers in the UK.

The exhibition looks back to the 1920s and early 1930s when glittering, beaded gowns were first made in large numbers. They represented not only a sharp contrast to the practical yet uninspiring clothing that had been a necessity during the First World War, but also a dramatic change in the cut of women’s garments. In a departure from the corseted, layered styles that were fashionable before the War, modern dresses in the 1920s were long and tubular in shape.

As well as being less constrictive to wear, the simplified forms and flat surfaces were ideal for decorating with sequins and beads. Bedazzled explores the production of glass ‘bugle’ beads, which were made in Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic, during the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the highly skilled French art of tambour embroidery as a method of hand-stitching beads and sequins onto the surface of a dress.

Through the costumes on show, Bedazzled charts the changes in the manufacture of beaded evening wear over the last century, from beaded dresses made in France during the 1920s, through to sequinned jackets which were decorated in Indian workshops during the 1980s. Visitors will see how societal changes and technological advancements have impacted on these developments.

Accompanying the items on show are some of the fascinating stories behind them, revealing who owned them and – in some cases – the important events to which they were first worn. The exhibition also features a selection of eye-catching, diamanté-embellished accessories.

liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/bedazzled

 

Ruth Moilliet: FOFO

FOFO: Fear of finding out

Having celebrated the botanical world in her work for many years, Ruth Moilliet’s bold and engaging sculptures now look at the decline of plant species, their pollinators and the natural world as a whole.

Her initial studies highlighted the impact the fossil fuel industry has on our planet where she began to use found, recycled plastic materials to produce her work. The new additions shown in this exhibition encourage discussion around the responsibilities we have as individuals to prevent further decline through our daily activities and the items in our lives.

Event

Free entry, Monday – Saturday. 10am – 4pm. Closed Sundays & Bank Holidays.

Drawn To The City by Vicki Mansley

Vicki Mansely’s bold and bright sketches celebrate the architecture of her home city. So it seems fitting that after years of drawing one the most iconic buildings in the city, that is where she will be showcasing her first full public collection, The Royal Liver Building.

As someone who took a break from art and worked outside of the field for years, she is a proof that it is never too late to express yourself artistically.

Vicki will be sketching live at the event most days and her work will be available to purchase.

Tracing Time exhibition at the LAKE ga...

Tracing Time – Exhibition at the LAKE Gallery

Four artists’ interpretation of the landscape from expression to abstraction, using paint, print and ceramics. Featured are Estella Scholes’ collagraphs and collaged prints, Richard Monks’ abstract paintings, a new collection of Tamara William’s expressive, textured pieces on wood and plaster, and a selection of Yvette Glaze’s ceramics with their multi-layered surface designs.

Thursday 17th October – Saturday 23rd November
Opening times: Thurs – Sat, 10am – 4pm

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

Into The Lens Photography Exhibition

For one night only Liv Roberts will showcase her latest work in a once in a lifetime event with local artists The Clan Stephen McGinty Callum Carty and Liz Owen.

Creative Interpretations inspired by N...

A year after her successful group exhibition at the ArtHouse, showcasing the students attending her regular mixed media drawing and painting courses held at the Cricket Club in Mawdesley and the studio room at Brookside in Ormskirk, the spotlight will now be firmly focused on Suzanne Riley’s own artistic repertoire for her celebratory solo show at the same gallery in Southport this autumn.

Having enjoyed working across various mediums throughout her career, the breadth of Suzanne’s considerable talent will be well to the fore in an ambitious show that will encompass the extensiveness of her artistic skills.

“My background is in constructed textiles which focused primarily on weaving, knit, stitch, spinning, yarn design and felt making. My interest in drawing and painting was apparent as an infant with colour and texture always being a passion.”

A graduate in Textile Design in the 1980s, Suzanne went on to work at one of the largest woolen mills in the North West – Joseph Hoyle and Sons – designing woven fabrics for premiere women’s fashion labels, Jaeger, Planet and Aquascutum before completing a FE teaching diploma that ultimately steered her towards lecturing at West Lancashire College (formerly Skelmersdale and Ormskirk College).

“During my 34 years teaching career I’ve had many opportunities to explore other art and design related specialisms such as mixed media textiles, print and ceramics. Favourite combinations of textile techniques and processes include Batik, Applique, Free Motion Embroidery and Dissolvable fabric applications all combined in one creative outcome. My preferred combinations of media for painting include a watercolour/ink base with applications of gouache, chalk pastel, oil pastel and graphite.”

Suzanne generates most of her artistic stimulation direct from Nature: “Organic shapes, the natural landscape, the changing seasons, flowers, foliage, seedpods, seaweed and seashells are all inspirational sources. Their naturally occurring patterns, textures, surfaces and colour combinations never cease to amaze me and are regularly incorporated into my artwork.”

In particular, Suzanne expresses an enthusiastic passion for all varieties of winter-flowering Hellebores: “Their shapes, colours, textures and forms are stunning and provide an excellent starting point for developing design ideas or simply recording as an observational mixed media painting/drawing. Their seedpods, too, are such intricate shapes, quite charming!”

The exhibition will be grouped into examples of Textiles, Painting and Drawing.

Seldom restricting herself to a single medium, Suzanne’s textiles are assembled following four processes: “The foundation layer is Batik on 100% Habotai silk, which is then backed with felt. Applying liquid wax provides a barrier for the silk paints and creates a pattern once the wax is removed using a hot iron. Free machine embroidery is then stitched onto the Batik background to suggest the outline of the flowers and to offer further definition. Then dissolvable fabric work is applied in places on top as a third layer. To achieve this, machine stitch is applied to dissolvable fabric that is then immersed into boiling water. The boiling water dissolves the fabric and you are left with the embroidered lace like structures which are then tacked onto the machine stitched Batik base.”

Working from life, Suzanne’s paintings of floral arrangements using cut flowers also rely on combining a variety of media and intuitive techniques: “The two vases of flowers are seasonal flowers painted using a watercolour base with the addition of watercolour pencil, graphite and chalk pastel on top. A broad range of mark making and surface pattern techniques are also used to achieve different effects before adding rock & table salts on damp ink-based watercolour to create the textured vases.”

Suzanne’s landscapes are similarly rich in their composition that she puts down to her textile background. Built up using gouache and oil pastel applied over a watercolour base, wax crayon and oil pastel are further applied onto some of the tree trunks in order to resist the paint before decorating with ‘sgraffito’ to enhance the final texture.

Certainly not one to be missed, Suzanne’s solo exhibition will be on show at the ArtHouse, Eastbank Street, Southport from 29th October – 16th November 2024. The gallery is open Tuesday – Friday 10.00-15.00. Saturday 11.00-16.00.

People and Other Living and Dead Thing...

Join the team to celebrate the opening of a new exhibition with seed paper making and a conversation between artist Jenny Gaskell and writer Megan Holland.

Friday 18th Oct
Crosby Library
2pm – 3:00pm

After welcoming everybody and introducing the exhibition, Jenny and Megan will be talking about their work around grief and why it’s important to talk about it. You’re invited to stay after the conversation to chat with them, Jenny, Megan and explore the installation. They will also be running seed paper making sessions throughout the length of the exhibition, starting on launch day:

Friday 18th Oct
Crosby Library
1:30pm – 3:30pm

To attend the conversation between Jenny and Megan please RSVP by emailing hello@atthelibrary.co.uk or speaking to a librarian as space is limited.

Event

Jenny Gaskell is an artist and theatre-maker. Her work involves hosting, listening, writing, gathering people together and thinking about how to hold various types of grief – often intimate, tender, funny conceptual and gives reverence to everyday interactions. Megan Holland is a freelance writer researching and writing about LGBTQIA+ grief and its impact on communities. Her work explores the ways LGBTQIA+ identity, grief and activism intersect and how healing can take place by building resilient communities.

With My Ear to the Wall – A New ...

The second exhibition as part of their autumn season of Loved and Lost will be With My Ear to the Wall – an intimate audio installation from artist and theatre maker Jenny Gaskell.

Fri 18 Oct – 09 Nov
Bootle Library
Mon – Fri 10:30am – 4:30pm
Saturdays – 10:30am – 1:30pm

With My Ear to the Wall invites you to eavesdrop into the tender insights of the lives of strangers as they talk about things they
miss, people, places and experiences.

Event

Each tumbler is designed to be placed against the wall, sharing the voice and connecting us with people who are not always in the room, urging us to listen to perspectives which are at risk of not being heard.

Natural North

An exhibition featuring Richard Serridge, Katherine Dereli, John Sharp & Zoe Roberts

Rolling hillsides and a colder climate; this is the North of England. It holds the Lake District, the moors and the northern coast. The artists in this exhibition explore the far stretches of the ‘Natural North’ and all it’s natural beauty, devoid of the urban and man-made.

Richard Serridge is a landscape painter from the Wirral with a BA in Fine Art and a passion for nature and the local environment. By using repurposed materials, Richard challenges the waste culture of everyday life, whilst selecting materials that reflect each specific scene. Richard explores locations that are in his everyday surroundings, but usually go overlooked. He captures atmosphere and texture using high contrast colour, a variety of mark making techniques and allowing the unpredictable nature of his ground to influence structure.

Dealing with issues surrounding mental health is represented by the deliberate lack of human figures within the landscape, creating a sense of seclusion and beauty without interference. With a keen interest in railways, gardening and general making, these themes are also visited within Richard’s painting practice.

Katherine Dereli is a Lancashire based oil painter with a classical training in sculpture. Her subjects are various: figures, carefully arranged still-life objects, landscapes, painted quickly in the field or laboured over in the studio. What unites them is a particular approach to paint. She carefully observes and reproduces colour from life, mixed cleanly on the palette and laid down to create a varied surface of alternating high detail and broad ‘messy’ brushwork.

John Sharp studied illustration at De Montfort University, John then went on to work as an illustrator, graphic designer and in design/visual effects for the film and TV industry at the University of Manchester. John has exhibited nationally and internationally, with his work showcased in the Serpentine Gallery, Abbot Hall, Videcolor de Palermo in Buenos Aires and The Storey, Lancaster. Most recently John’s work has been on show at The Liverpool Art Fair, Stockport Open and “Modern Madness 9” in Hoxton London.

Zoe Roberts creates artworks of various mediums inspired by the beauty and adaptability of nature, her main focus is on changes she observes in landscape caused by weather, lighting plant life, the movements of the planet and the interactions of the inhabitants within and everyday moments. She is fascinated by how these changes in the environment can affect the atmosphere, meaning or aesthetic value of a place, her practice involves taking a photo on a walk to later recreate the mood of a place with her chosen medium through use of colour, mark making, light and memory of place. Born and based in the Wirral UK, Zoë graduated in 2022 with a BA (Hons) Fine Art Degree through Chester University and Wirral Met.

All artworks are for sale.

Join us for the Private View of the exhibition on Thursday 10th October from 5pm-7pm.

All welcome, but please register here: natural-north.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).