Following on from Lee Tsai, the Bluecoat will screen Farah Al Qasimi’s Everybody was Invited to a Party, which takes inspiration from ‘Iftah Ya Simsim’, a 1980s Arabic version of Sesame Street, and borrows text from translation books found in London.
The film features hand-sewn puppets, voiced by the artist, and captures moments where language falters and breaks down, but in doing so opens up new avenues of meaning. The slippages in language, mispronunciations and awkward translations build a world of melancholy and humour. Everybody was Invited to a Party also features music composed and performed by Al Qasimi.
Tue 11-Sun 23 Feb, 11am-5pm. Free entry.
Walker Art Gallery is proud to present Graham Crowley: I Paint Shadows, a new exhibition of works by Graham Crowley, winner of the 2023 John Moores Painting Prize. Opening 14 March 2025, this solo display offers visitors unprecedented insight into Crowley’s distinctive exploration of light and shadow through painting.
The exhibition marks a significant return to Walker Art Gallery for Crowley, who first entered the John Moores Painting Prize in 1976. Nearly five decades later, his 2023 Prize-winning painting ‘Light Industry’—now part of the gallery’s permanent collection—serves as a cornerstone for this comprehensive showcase of new works.
Through his signature style, Crowley investigates what he terms ‘sites of creativity’, from gardens to workplaces, using varied brushwork to create images that appear simultaneously familiar yet disrupted. His tonal approach builds layers of meaning, challenging viewers’ perceptions of everyday scenes through masterful manipulation of light and shadow.
The first film in the gallery as part of their new season, But Does It Speak?, will be Fallen Star, written and narrated by Jennifer Lee Tsai, who is currently in residence at the Bluecoat as part of the Wittenham Bursary. Fallen Star is a tender film about connecting and holding ancestral bodies.
Originally commissioned and directed by Tmesis Theatre, as part of a collaborative project entitled ‘Lone Women’ with First Take, the film combines Lee Tsai’s poetry with dance performed by Pei Yee Tong and music by Meike Holzmann. This combination of choreography and poetry creates moments in which the spoken word seems to compel the performer to move, and in turn, the performance seems to amplify and draw out Lee Tsai’s words.
Fallen Star, written and read by Jennifer Lee Tsai. Performed by Pei Yee Tong. Directed by Elinor Randle. Composer Meike Holzmann. Filmed & edited by First Take
Open Tue 21-Sun 2 Feb, 11am-5pm. Free entry.
But Does it Speak? is a new season featuring artists and writers who use poetry, fiction, experimental writing and speech to establish and alter visual worlds.
Join Bluecoat for three film screenings in the gallery, workshops, events and more.
Stay tuned as they announce the incredible artists they’re working with this season.
Bluecoat are excited to host Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad from The White Pube, for an in conversation event with Liverpool-based artist Frances Disley, to discuss their debut novel Poor Artists.
Event by Dead Ink Bookshop
Tickets: £5
A new exhibition arrives at the Coffee Stop Cafe, in St Mary’s Market from January – March 2025.
The Art of Oesophageal Cancer is an exhibition of drawings by Ann Wood @annorthernlass that were created during her experience of treatment and recovery of Oesophageal Cancer in 2018.
A selection of drawings that use coloured pencil and fineliner are taken from a book published by Ann that explores her journey and aims to raise awareness of the symptoms and risk factors that can indicate Oesophageal Cancer.
The exhibition will open during less survivable cancers week and will run during February which is Oesophageal Cancer Awareness Month.
The exhibition is open during market trading hours, Monday – Saturday 9am-5pm and is situated behind the Coffee Stop Cafe in St Mary’s Market WA10 1AR.
This exhibition is delivered by Platform Studios.
Southport Contemporary Arts will once again be welcoming in the New Year with its much-anticipated 2025 UNDER THE BED SALE at the ArtHouse in Eastbank Street from Wednesday 8th – Saturday 18th January.
At the close of the year the call went out for established and emerging SCA artists to route out from storage no longer loved or early artworks that they would not normally exhibit and offer them at bargain prices in the forthcoming UNDER THE BED SALE.
This annual art lover’s treat provides the avid art collector wanting to boost their own collection and the savvy bargain hunter resurfacing after the Boxing Day sales, the opportunity to buy unique examples of arts and crafts ranging from hand-thrown ceramics and original paintings to decorative embroideries and intricate jewellery, all offered at much reduced prices for the duration of the exhibition.
Norrie Beswick-Calvert, co-Director of SCA, reports “Our exhibiting artists never charge the full worth of the beautifully handcrafted and unique pieces that they make, so it always seems a shame to then reduce them for the UNDER THE BED SALE. Because they are always busy creating new work and coming up with new and exciting ideas, they just simply run out of storage space! The UNDER THE BED SALE gives everyone a chance to bag even more of a bargain than usual by shopping with us during the exhibition and supporting their local independent Gallery and local artists and makers.”
The Southport Contemporary Arts community began in 2009 with the aim to recognise, promote and support the many talented artists active in Southport who were all striving for the same goals and ambitions. The current list of creative skills represented by the members of SCA now ambitiously includes painters, textile artists, filmmakers, photographers, printmakers, sculptors, jewellers, musicians, poets and performance-based artists. SCA provides the opportunity for creatives from all backgrounds and disciplines to be recognised and appreciated and its year-round showcase exhibitions continue to champion the diversity and vitality of the current local art scene.
If you’re looking for affordable art don’t hesitate – these are all one-offs and once they’re gone – they’re gone.
The UNDER THE BED SALE (8th – 18th January) is at ArtHouse, 65 Eastbank Street, Southport, PR8 1EJ. Opening times: Tuesday – Friday: 10am-3pm & Saturday: 11am-4pm.
Discover the life of local legend Elizabeth Smolen, a Polish refugee who settled in Birkenhead and became a champion scooter racer and successful businesswoman.
A keen motorcyclist and engineer, Smolen made a name for herself by repairing, dealing and racing scooters and became part of Wirral’s scooter scene. Elizabeth Smolen: Trailblazer explores Smolen’s early life against the backdrop of Soviet Poland, and how her daring escape to England allowed her to make a new home in Wirral.
Objects from Smolen’s life, including two Vespa scooters, will be on display, alongside information about Smolen’s rich life, and stories from those who remember her.
The exhibition also explores the broader Wirral scooter scene, featuring photos and memorabilia from Birkenhead-based Cloud 9 Scooter Club.
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.
Digging into the land and lineage of historical sites for the past five years, collaborative artist duo, Angela Stringer and Nicky Perrin present their formative works in an exhibition which reveals the alchemical process of turning raw earth into vibrant expressions of story and place.
Harnessing natural materials such as sandstone, soil, clay and botanical matter from their local Wirral environment and beyond, they create paint and dyes to make work which transcends its origins, merging contemporary techniques with ancient traditions.
A reconstruction of the artists’ apothecary style studio will immerse visitors in their creative practice, showcasing the tools used to hand-process rock into fine pigment, before the time-honoured method of mulling it into paint.
Un/Earthed is the materialisation of journeying between the coasts of Anglesey and woodlands of Wirral. It is an exploration of identity, heritage and tales told through natural colour, reflecting on the deep connection between people and place.
