2022 saw dot-art produce over 20 exhibitions across Liverpool; including our dot-art Gallery, and with our partners at INNSiDE by Melia, The Everyman and The Reader. Plus the dot-art Schools Competition Exhibition at the iconic Royal Liver Building during the summer.
Supporting local artists and having a creative impact on the daily lives of individuals in our region is at the core of our organisation. Our talented Artist Tutors helped us realise this by delivering over 3,000 teaching hours on our programme of Creative Courses and bringing exciting art workshops to the communities and young people of Liverpool.
dot-art creates connections between the arts and businesses of Liverpool. In 2022 almost 50 artworks were selected for rental projects in the businesses of Liverpool. Surrounding yourself and your employees with art creates a positive environment and financially supports home grown creatives.
After an uncertain Christmas due to COVID-19 cases rising again in the UK we slowly returned back to our gallery with cautious measures for our valued visitors.
In the dot-art Gallery, our Liverpool Collection exhibition continued, providing familiar sites in gorgeous oils, acrylics and watercolour paintings.
Starting the year how we meant to go on, supporting artists with paid opportunities, we put out our Open Call for the fifth Liverpool Plinth.
Just as another exhibition ended, we launched On The Brink – an exhibition about species loss in the UK due to climate change. Hosting the private view on Zoom, we heard from the artists in the exhibition about how the topic influences their art.
February was an exciting month as we announced our Heritage Lottery Fund Grant Rewarded project; Tree Story: A History of Liverpool Through its Trees
dot-art, Open Eye Gallery and Mersey Forest explored natural heritage with local communities and schools over an 18 month period.
You can still contribute your own Tree Story here!
We also had plenty of our Creative Courses running across Liverpool, including Abstract Painting, Portrait Drawing and Landscape Painting.
At the end of February we had a very special exhibition launch ‘After The Rain’ by Nathan Pendlebury at our partner’s hotel, INNSiDE by Melia on Old Hall Street. This is the second exhibition we have programmed on our designated first floor gallery space of the hotel.
In March, we received some great recognition for our Managing Director, Lucy Byrne. She was recognised in the WISE 100 for leadership in social enterprise at dot-art.
Continuing the theme of awards, we received the LCR Culture and Creativity Award for Sustainable business in the Arts in March too!
Growing our dot-art Darkroom offer we added Darkroom Vouchers, perfect to give the analogue lover in your life for the option of darkroom hire, membership or courses.
Ending the month off with something new we launched ‘Sunrise / Sunset’.
This exhibition helped us look forward to brighter times with an optimistic air despite recent worldwide events.
Finally in March we also managed to pack in announcing an Artists in Residence at The Everyman programme with dot-art Artist Members.
Together with our friends at the Everyman this residency brings together theatre and visual art by embedding practising local artists within the theatre’s spaces, animating public areas and creating new artworks culminating in an end of residency exhibition.
During April we ran an Analogue Photography Competition with support from Open Eye Gallery to celebrate film photographers in Liverpool and our unique Darkroom offer.
In the same month we launched our spring programme of Creative Courses, packed as always with lots of interesting courses.
And, in this it’s 10th year, dot-art Schools closed the public artwork vote in April. An opportunity for fellow art lovers vote for your favourites in the dot-art Schools Competition 2022.
At the start of May we announced the winner of our dot-art x Open Eye Gallery Analogue Photography Competition, Chun-Mei Wang. We also selected the runners up and shared their work with our audience. The winner received an FREE 3 month Artist Membership & Darkroom Membership in addition to a feature in the exhibition and 1-2-1 with Open Eye’s Programme Assistant.
May was a big month for great exhibitions. Over at The Everyman, our exhibition programme in partnership with the theatre, Art In The Ev held an exhibition by Ali Hunter. The Reader hosts our Art In The Mansion programme and an intuitive art exhibition titled Art Is Healing was on the walls this month.
Back at dot-art Gallery we launched ‘Traces Through The Landscape‘ a 3 month solo show by Amanda Oliphant exploring the emotions and ideas the landscape can conjure.
June was the public opening of dot-art Schools Competition exhibition at the iconic Royal Liver Building. The 10 year anniversary of the schools competition was a major moment, so we chose to do a theme option for the first time ever – Protecting The Environment.
We ran many creative courses across our city centre partner venues, welcomed new Artist Members and presented ‘The Divine Feminine’ at The Everyman by Kirsten Todd.
In July we unveiled two pieces of public art, the first being the fifth Liverpool Plinth on Liverpool Parish Church. “2400” St Helens based contemporary sculptor, Katie McGuire. The sculpture will stand until July 2023. The second piece of public art was our fourth ‘Flag It Up‘ commission. ‘Caution, High Tide’ by Tommy Graham on the theme of Climate Change, a thoughtful and provoking statement.
At INNSiDE by Melia Liverpool we opened ‘Trees Through Time & Seasons‘ by Hazel Thomson.
On our beautiful Grade II listed Queen Avenue we held an event titled Artist In The Avenue. Inviting the exhibiting Artists Amanda Oliphant to do some live painting outside the gallery for passers by to get a better insight into her work and chat with the artist.
On our blog we created a piece with our Artist Members Anne Wiziack and Richard Serridge on how to make your practice Climate Conscious, which you can read here.
dot-art Gallery transformed it’s walls with beautiful illustrations and realistic oils for ‘The Interior‘ Exhibition.
Finally, In July with our partners at Open Eye Gallery we installed the Analogue Photography Competition winner and runner up images on the Digital Display Window on the exterior Open Eye Gallery.
For the month of August artists, Suzanne Grace, Steve Bayley and Hilary Dron exhibited their show ‘The Natural World’ at Art In The Mansion. We worked with Liverpool Hope University, Tate Liverpool and Being Human Festival on an open call for migrant artists to work with the the Tate’s collection and create a new piece of work or research relating to the theme of Breaking Through Borders.
Our Open Call for our next Flag It Up commission went live in August. We teamed up with Homotopia to put a call out for artists to explore issues faced by the LGBTQIA community in Liverpool.
On our blog we created a piece with our Artist Members Anne Wiziack and Richard Serridge on how to make your practice Climate Conscious, which you can read here.
A new programme of Creative Courses for the Autumn period of 2022 was announced with lots of brilliant new course additions.
In September we held on to the flowers that the summer brought with new exhibition ‘Flora‘
For Art In The Ev, artists Luciana Hermida and Brigitte Watkinson collaborated on a surreal exhibition at the Everyman Theatre. Both use collage and dream like scenarios in their work.
The dot-art team were shortlisted for the Community Impact Award at the Merseyside Independent Business Awards!
We interviewed artist and tutor Madeleine Pires over on our blog to dive more into her practice and teaching. You can take a look here.
In October we opened the first dot-art x The Everyman Artists In Residence exhibition with Alex Corina and Laleh Kamalian. They produced sketches and paintings of the staff and theatre building from their residency period.
For Black History Month, The Plaza and dot-art invited artist Nina Edge to create figurative drawings on the windows of The Plaza building for staff and visitors to pass by and get an insight into the work of poet Jackie Kay.
At the beautiful Calderstones Mansion, Art In The Mansion saw an exhibition by Sandra Hepworth and Rena Pearl is an eclectic mix of fabric based art works, hand printed and archival photographs and acrylic paintings.
At INNSiDE by Melia hotel in November, we launched a solo exhibition by prolific painter David Brightmore. ‘Other Points of View‘ explored wild wales and the coronavirus on a microscopic level.
dot-art Gallery installed The Liverpool Collection, our annual exhibition around the festive period to inspire the gift of giving local art.
We won Community Impact Award at The Merseyside Business Awards hosted by Morecrofts Solicitors at the fabulous Titanic hotel. It was an evening to remember and we are so thankful to our supporters for the recognition.
Keeping in line with our sustainability ethos, in December we redesigned our classic Liverpool Baubles as NEW sustainably sourced wooden baubles of Liverpool Buildings. Plus we created Limited Edition dot-art Artists hand painted versions.
Working again with our friends at Open Eye Gallery, we put on free Darkroom taster sessions to encourage analogue submissions to the Liverpool City Region Photo Awards.
The last month of 2022 also meant we announced our Winter programme of courses for the new year, ran the last courses of the year including Analogue Photography Weekend and dot-art club as well as creating a whole new Gifts section on our website to make buying local art for loved ones easier.