As part of Wirral History and Heritage Open Days, the Williamson will be taking a deep dive into the collection.
Join our Collections Manager Josh as we delve into the early history of Della Robbia ceramics, focusing on the beautiful panels made by the company to adorn buildings in the local area.
FREE to attend, booking required.
Click Here to Book Now
September 18th, 19th & 27th
10:30am & 3pm
The Sunflower Dreams Project is a series of exhibitions held across the EU, UK, and North America, organised by a team of international volunteers, all of whom have served in Ukraine since the full-scale war started in 2022.
The project partners with artists Nataliia and Yustyna Pavliuk, who run art healing masterclasses in Lviv, to present a sample of the paintings created by the Ukrainian children they work with. The paintings they create are filled with dreams, joy, and love for family and home.
These paintings are displayed alongside works from the Williamson’s collection by Albert Richards, the youngest official war artist to be killed in action during WWII.
Seeing them side by side offers different perspectives on the impact of war, with The Sunflower Dreams project presenting an important contemporary perspective on how war effects young lives.
More On The Sunflower Dreams Project
The Williamson is delighted to be hosting the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2025 for its only exhibition outside of London.
The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize has an established reputation as the UK’s most important annual open exhibition for drawing. Established in 1994 by artist and Professor Anita Taylor, currently Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee, and Director of Drawing Projects UK, the annual Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize celebrates talent and excellence in current drawing practice.
The exhibition provides an important platform for artists, designers, makers, architects and other drawing practitioners as a catalyst within their careers, and champions the role, breadth, and value of drawing in creative practices today.
The 2025 awards were announced on 8th October 2025, totalling £27,000 awarded to artists working in contemporary drawing.
The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize is supported by the Trinity Buoy Wharf Trust – and 2025 marks the 8th year of their generous support for the annual open drawing exhibition.
About the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize
Introducing Wirral Libraries Story Patchwork Project celebrating Wirral Borough of Culture!
In January 2024, to celebrate library communities, Wirral Libraries hatched an adventure with a message to borrowers and social media followers to create a patch depicting what they
loved about Wirral- YOUR STORY/YOUR WIRRAL
Every single patch handed in was incorporated into the final Story Patchwork which has been touring Wirral since October 2024, promoting the libraries and celebrating the people, places and communities.
When we think of libraries we think of words but there are more ways to tell a story. Residents aged 4-94 drew, painted, stitched, stuck and wrote to tell their stories in the ways they could.
These patchwork stories are now on display at the Williamson Art Gallery until the New Year. After seeing the patches, people have been encouraged to visit places on The Wirral they had not been before or to revisit places they remember from their past.
Find out more about Wirral Libraries
Subterranean Elevator has been conceived by artist Di Mainstone, and developed with a team of inter-disciplinary specialists. The installation invites intrepid visitors to explore the inner worlds of soil and the subconscious mind. On entering a dark, elevator-shaped environment, they will feel a soft earth-like substance beneath their feet, where they can stand, sit, or nestle. As the elevator commences its ‘descent’, subterranean tourists will experience mesmerising sounds and projected visuals, creating the sensation of sinking deep into the earth.
Mainstone has coined the term “Subnosis” to describe this hypnotic journey, in which surreal subterranean creatures flourish amongst fleeting thoughts, tickled by roots and intersected by neural pathways that lead us into an interior universe. In this place of collective contemplation, we are invited to remember our connection to all living and nonliving things here on our precious planet.
The artwork aims to deepen our understanding of biodiversity loss and engage with the emotional landscape of the climate emergency.
How to Experience Subterranean Elevator
Please allow for your eye to adjust to a darker space when entering the space, moving slowly and with caution.
Shoes are to be removed before entering the sand box.
If you are entering the sand box, please use the spaces below the benches to store belongings.
There are steps at the side of the sand box to enter and exit.
Children must be supervised at all times in the space and sandbox.
Do not throw sand.
Join our Collections Manager Josh for a tour of the two exhibitions curated from our collection, exploring the works of Albert Richards and Philip Wilson Steer.
These talks will offer the opportunity for you to find out more about the narrative of each exhibition, the stories we wanted each exhibition to tell, and give you background into the lives of each artist. There will be one talk a month throughout 2025. Please consider giving a donation with your booking to support the work of the Williamson. Click Here to Book Now Dates & Times:
Friday 22nd August, 6pm
Wednesday 17th September, 11am
Friday 24th October, 6pm
Wednesday 12th November, 11am
Friday 9th January, 6pm
From 2025, Steve des Landes has been Artist in Residence at the Williamson. With a studio in our Art Room, his intention starting the residency was to work on larger-scale paintings.
He will be hosting Open Studio sessions every Friday evening, 6 – 8:30pm. Between these hours you can drop into his studio, see what he’s working on and ask any questions. No booking required, just pop into the gallery on Friday evenings.
You can also follow Steve’s progress on our social media channels
Read more about Steve des Landes’s residency
As part of a series of interventions in our Philip Wilson Steer ‘In Conversation’ exhibition, the Williamson has invited the Liverpool artist, Ben Youdan, to feature a work that contrasts and explores the themes found within Steer’s work.
Youdan’s practice employs a wide variety of techniques and processes including collage, drawing, painting, printmaking and photography, to create imagery that takes inspiration from the iconography and ephemera of popular culture as well as his lived experience. His pieces explore themes such as identity, glamour and sexuality in an unapologetically Queer fashion.
EVENT: On Friday 22nd August at 1pm join Ben Youdan in conversation to find our more about his practice and process. Free, but booking recommended.
Book Now
In Youdan’s own words:
“As an artist, I am interested in exploring the notion that the masks we wear can reveal something intrinsic to our nature. These masks can be physical or psychological. The anonymity of concealing our physical appearance can have a liberating effect, that emboldens the individual to explore their true nature. This inherent contradiction is particularly prevalent within queer sexual subcultures.
Steer’s work is often seen as voyeuristic, whereas mine revels in a more exhibitionist nature, born out of lived experience.
Whilst Steer’s work has a muted, naturalistic colour palette, my work revels in its own artifice. The colours selected are deliberately synthetic, clashing, and even gaudy, but with a self-awareness and exuberance that reflects the unapologetic nature of the subject. In many ways this work is the polar opposite of the muted tones and perceived repression found within some of Steer’s work in this exhibition.
In traditional portraiture, the eyes are typically what the viewer engages with, setting the mood for the piece and revealing a vulnerability in the subject. With ‘Mask’, the eyes are deliberately obscured, presenting my subject in a way that is vulnerable, honest and open in a way that protects them, allowing them to remain indifferent to the judgement they might receive. Where Steer’s subjects are laid bare in a passive, open manner, mine retains their agency and power by presenting an authentic version of themselves and their sexuality – on their terms.
The image of the gas mask can be interpreted in a variety of ways. In this specific intervention it is a device used in sexual role-play in a variety of fetish subcultures which deviate from the mainstream. It often denotes a submissive person who has elected to give themselves over completely to the gratification of a dominant partner. To a mainstream observer, this can often have darker connotations. This piece aims to subvert that presumption. Instead of black shiny rubber, it is presented in pink shiny glitter, challenging preconceived notions of alternative sexual expression.
My complex, handmade, mixed media portraits take inspiration from my lived experience of pop culture, the ephemera of daily life and queer subcultures.”
Part of Independents Biennial 2025
Philip Wilson Steer: In Conversation
Ben Youdan’s website
‘The Long Haul’ is an installation by Jackie Haynes and Heather Mullender-Ross, collectively named Artist A & Artist B. The installation has been commissioned by Wirral Council as part of Liverpool Independent’s Biennial 2025.
The net which hangs in the central space is constructed from a decommissioned cargo parachute and is one of a number of evolving artworks and performances created using this fabric. The audio is a recording of two songs based on traditional sea shanties, arranged and performed by Liverpool Shanty Choir with lyrics by Artist A & Artist B, which will be released as a limited edition 7” single.
‘What Were They Thinking’ is a shanty telling the story of Artist A & Artist B’s artwork. From their purchase of a cargo parachute on Ebay, the song narrates how the parachute became a site responsive artwork; it was cut down and made into blankets to host a public picnic, constructed as table cloths, tent dresses and a tennis court for a Dada-esque performance. In the second shanty, ‘Haul The Old Parachute Along’, Artist A & Artist B use collective protesting through the shanty verse to highlight the often precarious pay and conditions endured by many contemporary artists.
Event: On 13th September there will be a closing event featuring a live performance at the Williamson with Liverpool Shanty Choir, a screening of their film ‘The Surplus Badge’ (2023), and the opportunity to purchase the limited edition single.
Free Tickets to Liverpool Shanty Choir performance
Independents Biennial 2025
Photo credit: Ash Hardman.
NOW EXTENDED TO 1ST NOVEMBER
An inspiring exhibition showcasing the work of the Happy Snappers, a Wirral-based photography group made up of both Deaf and BSL users.
I’ll Tell You Later explores the relationship between the Deaf experience and the hearing world. It sheds light on the barriers D/deaf individuals face, while showing the Happy Snappers as a powerful example of how inclusive, supportive communities can break down these obstacles. Through their work, the group highlights the importance of creating a more inclusive society that benefits everyone.
This exhibition is an opportunity to engage in meaningful conversation through the lens of photography.
Happy Snappers are a group of friends who are both Deaf and BSL users. They get together and enjoy life outside and explore some of the Wirral’s hidden locations and beautiful scenery, and capture these locations on camera. They are not a professional photography group but share the same love of meeting people, socialising and having fun.
Emma Case is a socially engaged photographer working with local communities focusing on projects that often explore home, identity, memory and place. Emma is interested in building real relationships over time and working collectively, often looking at social issues and their impact but through the lens of changing the narrative through storytelling. Emma is fluent in British Sign Language and has worked with the Deaf community for over 20 years; from support worker with SignHealth to Actress with Deafinitely Theatre. Emma is extremely passionate about accessibility for Deaf audiences and artists within cultural spaces.
I’ll Tell You Later is part of Photo Here, a programme of socially engaged photographic residencies and exhibitions commissioned by Liverpool City Region Combined Authority as part of this year’s Cultural Events Programme. Developed by Open Eye Gallery in collaboration with each of six local authorities: Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral.