Interest area: art

dot-art and Liverpool Architecture Festival 2024 (LAF24) have worked in partnership to produce this exhibition featuring local creatives. Artists of all abilities entered a free competition to show us ‘A Window to your Neighbourhood’.

dot-art as an arts organisation works with artists, communities, and businesses across Liverpool City Region. The dot-art Gallery was the ideal place for LAF 24 to host an exhibition exploring the architectural and place making elements of Liverpool’s neighbourhoods through artistic interpretation. The selection panel consisted of Kuda Mushangi (Architect, Artist & former LAF Committee Member) Lucy Byrne & Claire Henderson (Managing Director and Gallery Manager, dot-art). Mathew Giles (Director of Liverpool Architecture Festival) mediated the panel and provided prompts for the selection criteria based on artistic technique, displays of community and areas of historical significance and architectural interest.

From this process the panel selected 15 artists from the entries to exhibit their submitted pieces for the nearly 3-month long exhibition; out of which, and with much deliberation, the judging panel nominated an overall winner and three runners up. The overall winner is Simon Ward with ‘Portrait of Dr Sam Naghibi’. The runners up in no particular order are Neale Thomas with ‘Bootle Gasworks’, Gill Cowley with ‘Quarry Green Club’ and Martin Jones with ‘Ghosts’. The winner will receive a £500 voucher for art supplies as well as a year free as a dot-art Arist Member. The runners up will each received £100 voucher for art supplies and a year free as a dot-art Artist Member. The exhibition celebrates selected winners and all who have entered. They encourage their visitors to pick their winning works and share pictures across socials and tag @dotartliverpool and @laf_uk.

The range of artists in this exhibition specialise in a variety of media, from print to digital collage and more. They asked the artists, and now put the following questions to you as visitors to the exhibition: What does your neighbourhood mean to you? How is it framed within your day-to-day life? What local buildings, monuments, or built objects hold memories or stories? What hidden architectural gems does your local area hold?

‘A Window to Your Neighbourhood’ intentionally shifts the lens away from Liverpool’s iconic city centre architecture to the neighbourhoods where our small businesses thrive, communities grow, and resilience is built. Take a walk-through unfamiliar areas or down memory lanes. What do you remember from your locality? What’s still there? The exhibiting artworks, although many are devoid of people, exemplify through the industrial relics, social clubs, and shop fronts, that it is people that make places.

All artworks are for sale.

Join them for the Private View of the exhibition on Thursday 6th June from 5pm-7pm.

All welcome, but please register here:

dot-artxLAF24Neighbourhood.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 7th June – 17th August 2024.

An exciting new joint show by first time solo exhibitors, Marion Bayliss and Kevin Eccles, will open at the ArtHouse in Southport this month.

Centered around the theme of ‘My Journey’, their work although independently created, will combine early and recent artwork that demonstrates their artistic voyage and how they arrived at their distinctive conclusions.

Having moved to Lancashire 2 years ago, Marion Bayliss is still finding stimulation from her recent relocation: “I am thoroughly enjoying being in a new environment and am taking inspiration from my exciting new surroundings”.

In particular, Marion has an affinity with water that she can trace back to her childhood in Somerset: “My journey with water started when I was a very young child of 7 and my father (an ex-Water Polo player) taught me how to swim. Since then, I have always had a connection with water through swimming and being constantly surrounded by water in rivers, ponds, etc and of course the sea”.  

Marion has journeyed further afield in her search for creative inspiration: “I have often visited Devon and Cornwall to paint the sea and could be found sat on the beach with the sand in my toes, hair and paint trying to capture the atmosphere. It has been known that I will sometimes recreate the same scene 2 or maybe 3 times before I feel completely happy with the effects of trying different styles”.

Marion investigative nature also extends to the methods she uses to generate her art: “The media I like to use mostly are acrylics but I tend to use the medium that I feel will fulfil the effect that I want so it could be anything from watercolour pencils to oils and anything in between. Lately, I have tried to experiment more with different methods of working such as abstract and collage which I have found very interesting, fun and loosening in my working routines”.

Self-taught graphite pencil artist, Kevin Eccles, from Hillside, is equally investigative in his highly detailed, hyperrealistic re-interpretations of the world around him: “My work explores that what we take for granted and documents on paper in such detail, your eyes will wonder again and again. The amount of detail shows the level of understanding of what I am creating”.

Although Kevin has previously experimented using watercolour and coloured pencils, he keeps returning to graphite to execute his ideas which remains at the core of his practice: “My preferred medium is graphite pencil although this may expand in the future. With a monotone outlook, the illusion is created using various shades of grey”.

Now retired, Kevin has been able to draw upon his earlier career as an electrical engineer to structure a clear-cut system of execution: “As an engineer, planning and attention to detail is critical where that mind set can be an advantage when creating a complex piece. Once an engineer always an engineer”.

Rising to the challenge of attaining photographic precision, when restricted to using a monochromatic palette, is even more testing given the wide extent of Kevin’s all-embracing vision: “To date I have been influenced by the world around me which is vast, mundane and diverse whether it be mechanical, biological or bricks and mortar. If I can find a subject/object to push the boundary – my boundary – then let’s do it”.

Certainly not one to be missed, this latest showing by Marion and Kevin will be on display at the ArtHouse, Eastbank Street, Southport from 4^th – 22^nd June 2024.  The gallery is open Tuesday – Friday 10.00-15.00.Saturday 11.00-16.00.

INNSiDE Liverpool, part of Meliá Hotels International, is excited to host a brand new exhibition in collaboration with local art gallery, dot-art.

The new exhibition, Day & Night, is from the talented artist Dannielle Campbell, inspired by her bright blue sky paintings in contrast with her deeper, rich nocturnal scenes that will sit alongside each other.

Dannielle uses art as a visual storytelling method, capturing the seascape sensation rather than physicality, revealing the lasting, lingering moments of your imagination. Evoking emotions and visuals that draw you into their depth. The thoughts that call you back or take your breath away.

As an exploration of art, in our ever changing world. The artworks are a reflection of her love for water which represents calmness. Channelling creativity to explore beauty, peace, and serenity yet provoking something to make the viewer want to look further. The Freedom Series is a chance to be taken out of our everyday lives to somewhere special and let your imagination run wild.

The collaboration with local artists forms part of INNSiDE’s philosophy ‘Stay Curious’, which aims to accommodate guests’ every need with considered comforts and inspired lifestyle experiences enriched with locally curated music, art, independents and culture.

You can visit the new exhibition at INNSiDE Liverpool from Friday 24th May until September, 2024. All artwork is for sale. Private view 23 May, 5 – 7pm.

Location: First Floor, INNSiDE Liverpool, Old Hall Street, Liverpool L3 9LQ, United Kingdom

To book a room please visit www.innside.com/liverpool

Visit dot-art Gallery at 14 Queen Avenue, Castle Street, Liverpool L2 4TX (5 minutes’ walk away) or dot-art.co.uk to find out more.

Ian is an experienced artist, born in Liverpool in 1958. The majority of his work consists of screen prints and collages. In fact, the screen prints are essentially collages transferred into another medium.

Made by printing ink through a mesh screen onto paper or canvas, they include found and appropriated images combined with colours, and ‘gestural’ marks to make a coherent whole composition. They are influenced by some of the Pop artists of the 1960s and 70s such as Robert Rauschenberg and Richard Hamilton.

The images used are often from past eras, and include illustrations, diagrams, covers from ‘Pulp’ novels, film stars, and references to the art of past centuries. They could be referred to as ‘visual cocktails’.

The collages are a separate body of work, and are often quite puzzling and surreal. Hand-cut with just scissors and glue, these are influenced by some of the great Surrealist artists of the 1920s to 1950s such as Rene Magritte and Max Ernst. Included here are so-called ‘Remade Classics’ which are a take on some very famous paintings from past centuries, re-imagined with strange new interventions and made with a dose of humour.

This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Ian’s brother David, who lived in Sankey, near Warrington for most of his adult life, and died in 2023.