Interest area: art

Radical Landscapes

In summer 2022 Tate Liverpool will present Radical Landscapes, a major exhibition showing a century of landscape art revealing a never-before told social and cultural history of Britain through the themes of trespass, land use and the climate emergency.

The exhibition will include over 150 works and a special highlight will be Ruth Ewan’s Back to the Fields 2015-22, an immersive installation that will bring the gallery to life though a living installation of plants, farming tools and the fruits of the land. This will be accompanied by a new commission by Davinia-Ann Robinson, whose practice explores the relationship between Black, Brown and Indigenous soil conservation practices and what she terms as ‘Colonial Nature environments’.

Expanding on the traditional, picturesque portrayal of the landscape, Radical Landscapes will present art that reflects the diversity of Britain’s landscape and communities. From rural to radical, the exhibition reconsiders landscape art as a progressive genre, with artists drawing new meanings from the land to present it as a heartland for ideas of freedom, mysticism, experimentation and rebellion. 

Radical Landscapes poses questions about who has the freedom to access, inhabit and enjoy this ‘green and pleasant land’. It will draw on themes of trespass and contested boundaries that are spurred by our cultural and emotional responses to accessing and protecting our rural landscape.

Key works looking at Britain’s landscape histories include Cerne Abbas 2019 by Jeremy Deller, Tacita Dean’s Majesty 2006 and Oceans Apart 1989 by Ingrid Pollard. Ideas about collective activism can be seen in banners, posters and photographs, such as the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp banners by Thalia Campbell and video installations by Tina Keane.

Sketching In The Park

Get creative, explore and record the beautiful Japanese and old English gardens hidden in Calderstones Park.

This sketching course is a mixed ability class suitable for practising artists who want to experience drawing in this unique location or beginners looking to learn useful skills to help record and celebrate the world around them.

Programme

As a group, you will visit various parts of the park and choose different features to sketch, with demonstration and individual assistance from your tutor

You will look at constructing landscapes; close-up observational drawings of natural forms such as trees, leaves and flowers; architectural features and how to deal with effects of light sources/dappling/shadows

With your tutor you will discuss different approaches to your drawing, referencing a range of artists to provide context and pointers on how to deal with challenges

You will do quick sketches capturing the essence of a subject as well as longer drawings focussing on detail

Using coloured pencils to achieve colour variation and foundations for turning your sketches into paintings
Group critique and feedback sessions

Tutor: Madeleine Pires

Dates: Saturdays 28 May,4 June and 11 June,11am- 4pm

Cost: £125 for 3 day course

To avoid a booking fee and pay by card, cheque or cash, please contact dot-art Services directly on 0345 017 6660

Materials: You will need to bring a set of drawing pencils, set of coloured pencils, erasers and an A4 or A3 sketchbook.

Collage Art Journalling

Creating a visual diary combining elements of collage, writing, drawing, ’zen’ doodling as a means of personal self expression.

Design and create your own characterful headdresses inspired by stories, films and myths using environmentally friendly materials.

Programme

This 10 week course will focus on students creating a visual diary combining elements of collage, writing, drawing, ’zen’ doodling as a means of personal self expression and a space for experimentation; exploring themes from everyday life, as well as bigger hopes, dreams, and fears.

Fun and relaxing, collage is a wonderfully creative outlet, particularly for people who want to make art but don’t feel they have the skills or confidence for other endeavours. There are no rules! You can’t get it wrong and collaging, art journals are an easy way to help you connect with the creative self within.

The purpose of art journaling is not to make every page a masterpiece but to go with the flow, encourage playfulness and to enjoy experimenting with creativity in a personal, safe environment with the support of the tutor.

This self-directed process allows a freedom of expression that will build confidence and empower thinking.

Each week will begin with a quick 10 minute warm up collage exercise and then participants will create an image in response to a prompt or theme.

Prompts & Themes could include:-

Creating a Mandala, zentangle
A favourite quote
A favourite poem
Your Hand
What’s in my head
Faces
Gratitude
Black Out Poetry
Nature
A favourite memory
Dreams
Creating a Surreal collage/ humour
A favourite song
Free writing & imagery

On completion participants will have started a beautiful personal journal and will have gained the skills to carry on with this expressive, mindful art form.

Date

Tuesday afternoons, 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Starting 3rd May

10th, 17th, 24th,13th June

7th, 14th, 21st, 28th, 5th July

Cost

£160 for 10 Week Course

To avoid a booking fee and pay by card, cheque or cash, please contact dot-art Services directly on 0345 017 6660

Materials

All materials are provided.

You may want to bring additional materials to collage such as pictures, notes, magazines and other scrap papers to personalise your Journal.

Still Life Painting

This 10 week course will give you the essential techniques used to create beautiful still life compositions in oil paint.

This course is suitable for beginners, or for more experienced artists looking to polish up their skills.

Programme:

Introduction
Light and shade
Working with colour
Perspective
Composition
Fabric
Glass and reflections
Organic forms
Flowers
Innovation and abstraction
Dates

Monday evenings 6-8pm

2nd, 19th, 16th, 23rd and 30th May

6th, 13th, 20th and 27th June

4th July

Cost

£160 for the 10 week course (full course must be booked in advance)

It is possible to split this cost into two payments of £80, please call 0345 017 6660 for more details.

To avoid a booking fee or pay via cheque or cash, please contact dot-art Services directly on the number above.

Materials

The essential materials will include:

pencils and paper for exercises

oil paint paper, palette, brushes, paints, cleaning rags, turps

(suggested range in order of importance: titanium white, ivory black, burnt umber, ultramarine, cadmium red, cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, cerulean).

Landscape Painting

This course will provide an opportunity to explore landscape in paint.

Through a series of quick experimental pieces and more finished works, this landscape painting course will walk you through the process of developing your own unique visual response to the landscape.

Suitable for complete beginners who are new to oil painting as well as those with more experience looking to develop their skills.

Programme:

The course will cover a range of things including gathering your own reference material, testing out ideas and ultimately walking away at the end of the 3 weeks with a painting you would be happy to hang on your wall. Although centred around oil painting, the course will involve a variety of media, including charcoal and acrylic paint.

Please bring a collection of printed out reference photos, some colour and some monochromatic.

How to create a strong and balanced composition – learning the importance of tonal arrangement in creating a balanced composition

Linear perspective, eye lines i.e how the eye travels across the piece

Tri-tone charcoal drawings and black and white acrylic painting

Japanese inspired Notan drawings (black &white)

Using acrylic paint, simplifying a landscape into masses of colour – no detail

Colour wheel – science of colour and the interaction of colour – Josef Albers

Colour mixing – how to create or match any colour

Creating colour swatches/samples

Sketching in the landscape

Photos

Premixing colours – arranging your palette

Begin a landscape painting from photo references and sketches in the landscape – focusing on basic shapes and colours, no detail

Wet on wet techniques

Dates: Sundays 11:00-4:00pm, 1, 8 and 15 May

Cost: £125 for 3 Sundays. To avoid a booking fee or pay via cheque or cash, please contact dot-art Services directly on 0345 017 6660

Materials: The full material list for this course can be found here.

Screen Print on Fabric Workshop

During this one-day course you will learn the processes of Screen Printing and how to apply this technique to fabric.

At the end of this workshop you will leave with two of your very own printed tote bags for you to wear at your leisure (and make your friends jealous).

Workshop is lead by printmaker and artist Kate Hodgson.

No experience necessary. They will provide tote bags for the workshop so you do not need to bring your own fabric with you. Please be aware that this workshop is for printing onto tote bags only and that they will not be able to fulfil any requests to print onto other items.

Introduction To Chinese Painting

Explore the history of Chinese Painting techniques with artist Madeleine Pires.

This Chinese brush painting session is a mixed ability class, suitable for experienced artists looking to experiment with a different technique, or beginners looking to create graceful and simple paintings.

Programme

This session will begin with a brief history of Chinese art looking at the main ways it differs from Western painting styles

This will be followed by a demonstration of brush technique, correct handling and posture, leading to the first exercise which will finish in you painting a long flowing orchid stem, adding simple orchid flowers

The second exercise teaches more techniques focusing on ink and dilution, adding watercolour

You will then paint the “Four Gentlemen” – four plants used to teach the fundamental elements of Chinese brush painting: the plum blossom (梅), the bamboo (竹), and the chrysanthemum (菊) (the other plant is the orchid (蘭) previously used in exercise 1)

They will look at what different trees and flowers represent in Chinese culture: e.g. strength, peace, purity etc
They will also look at Chinese calligraphy and have a go at writing in Chinese using our paintbrushes

From a number of different visual stimuli, we will choose our own subject matter to create a more detailed painting using the techniques we have learned, with a demonstration from the artist, feedback and group critiques.

Cyanotype

This course introduces participants to the use of a traditional Victorian photographic technique as a way of creating unique images.

The Adventures in Blue – Cyanotype Sunprint Workshop introduces participants to the use of a traditional Victorian photographic technique as a way of creating unique artistic images in response to the beautiful surroundings of Calderstones Park, in a relaxed and mindful way.

Suitable for beginners.

Programme:

Introduction to cyanotype & alternative processes
A brief history of the pioneers (Anna Atkins)
Creating a first photogram/cyanotype piece (precoated)
Forage for objects
Wash first piece
Mixing chemistry & coating paper by hand
Making your first fully handmade print
Working with digital negatives
Wash second piece
Creating a photographic cyanotype
Wash third piece
Dry & Finish
Dates:

Saturday 26th March, 11am-4pm

Saturday 25th June, 11am-4pm

Cost

£50 for 1 day workshop

To avoid a booking fee or pay via cheque or cash, please contact dot-art Services directly on 0345 017 6660

Materials

Materials will be provided by your tutor.

The Likeness Of Things: Baum – C...

From Tuesday 10 May – Saturday 16 July 2022, Kirkby Gallery celebrates the work of four major artists who lived and worked in Liverpool from the 1960s and whose legacy lives on today.

These four influential figures of the Merseyside art scene are John Baum (b. 1942), Maurice Cockrill (1936 -2013), Adrian Henri (1932 -2000), and Sam Walsh (1934 – 1989). The exhibition celebrates the work and friendship of the group, who helped to put Merseyside on the cultural map and continue to inspire artists today. It is the first exhibition of its kind to tell the story of these four artists and their practice during the 1970s.

Highlights include Baum’s Five Girls on the Steps of the Art College (1973), Cockrill’s large scale, 3 x 3 metre Scillonian Pumps (1974), Henri’s prizewinning Painting I (1972) and Walsh’s Portrait of Ivon Hitchens (1974) as well as a selection of works that haven’t been on public display for more than 40 years.

The exhibition presents work from artists’ estates and private collections but, significantly, will also display work from regional public art galleries and collections including the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, the Williamson Art Gallery & Museum on the Wirral, The Atkinson in Southport, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool University’s Victoria Gallery & Museum.

Cllr Shelley Powell, Knowsley’s Cabinet Member for Communities and Neighbourhoods said: “Merseyside’s contribution to arts and culture can never be underestimated and it’s fantastic that we have this unique exhibition coming to Knowsley during our year as Liverpool City Region Borough of Culture. It’s an ambitious display that celebrates a significant moment in our region’s history and I’m sure people from far and wide will make the trip to Kirkby Gallery to immerse themselves in this fascinating and beautiful show.”

All four artists started teaching at Liverpool Art College in the 1960s, though they had come to the city from different places — Baum had studied at the Slade School of Art in London, Cockrill at Reading, Henri at Durham University and Walsh at Dublin College of Art.

They were friends, and part of the same art scene. As early as 1962, Henri sang his poems with Walsh on guitar in the basement of the Everyman Theatre (then Hope Hall), and they wrote an art manifesto for their joint exhibition at the Portal Gallery in London. In the late 1960s, Cockrill performed poetry alongside Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, and a few years later, Baum painted Cockrill’s portrait in An Afternoon at Windermere House, the house where poet Roger McGough lived.

Although each artist had developed different approaches and styles in the 1960s, through the 1970s, Baum, Cockrill, Henri and Walsh were often exhibited together under the banner of “realism” in the UK and abroad. During that decade, they concentrated on what John Baum called “the likeness of things”, depicting people, objects and places in a clear crisp manner sometimes described as photo-realist, in reference to the movement then evolving in the US.

This exhibition revisits that work of the 1970s when, with apparent emotional detachment, Baum, Cockrill, Henri and Walsh reappropriated traditional genres like portrait, landscape or still-life painting, and gave them a resolutely contemporary twist.

The Likeness of Things: Baum – Cockrill – Henri – Walsh, is curated by Catherine Marcangeli, Estate of Adrian Henri, and Senior Lecturer in Art History, Paris-Cité University. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue written by Catherine Marcangeli. RRP £10.

Stephen Dixon: Maiolica and Migration

Stephen Dixon’s Maiolica and Migration draws attention to the ongoing catastrophe of forced migration, epitomised by regular shipwrecks and sinking of refugee vessels in the English Channel and Mediterranean Sea.

The central narrative draws upon the connection between the historical migration of white tin-glazed pottery – originally from North Africa to Spain and Italy (Maiolica) then to France (Faience), Holland (Delftware) and eventually into the UK (English Delftware) – to the parallel migration patterns of contemporary refugees and asylum seekers from North Africa to Northern Europe, using tin-glazed ceramic as both the medium and the message.

Stephen Dixon was the 2021 winner of AWARD at the British Ceramics Biennial for his work, ‘Transient: The Ship of Dreams and Nightmares’, which will be included in this exhibition.

Maiolica and Migration will coincide with two other exhibitions by Dixon in Merseyside, the other two being at the Walker Art Gallery and Bluecoat Display Centre, and collaboration between the three venues is part of NW Craft Network’s celebration of craft, supported by the Art Fund’s Professional Network Grant.