In 2024 this country saw some big changes and faced some challenging times. We strived to bring affordable art and quality, value for money creative courses to our customers. For our Artist Membership of over 80 local creatives , we managed commissions, large scale projects and selling exhibitions to boost their income from their creative practice.
Summer is always a big moment for us, but this year especially as we celebrated 10 years of Liverpool Art Fair. It was our most successful fair to date as well!
After putting out a call for feedback on our Creative Courses programme we have put a new spin on things. Developing partnerships with new venues, tweaking timelines and extending our programme in to the Spring.
In addition to our 6 dot-art Gallery exhibitions, dot-art also launched ‘Hidden Places’, ‘Day & Night’ and ‘Echoes of Emotion’ at INNSiDE by Melia Hotel Liverpool. These solo exhibitions on the first floor of the hotel are in partnership with INNSiDE to showcase local art to their guests and visitors.
These are just some headlines and highlights of the vast array of work we do to promote creativity in everyday lives and provide opportunities for local artistic talent.
Below, find out more about how 2024 looked for us here at dot-art.
Refreshed for the new year, we went in 2024 ambitious about championing local artists.
Opening in 2023, ‘The Liverpool Collection’ exhibition, our annual show continued into the new year. A chance to showcase the diverse range of artists we represent.
Bringing in the new, we launched Rob Edmondson’s solo exhibition ‘Hidden Places’ at the sophisticated hotel, INNSiDE by Melia. The works are predominantly based on reflective stops along walks around Edmondson’s scenic locality but also focus on his ravels from Iceland to Madeira.
Out in the city, we had Wirral Society of the Arts exhibiting in the ‘Art in the Ev’ space in the magnificent Everyman Theatre on Hope Street. This exhibition comprised of the WSA prize winners and the committee’s selection from the year’s open exhibition.
The Wirral Society of Arts (WSA) has been in existence since 1948. Each year, the Williamson hosts a WSA prize exhibition and we were honoured they chose to work with dot-art for their 2023 edition.
In February we collaborated with our long time neighbours R & H Fine Wines to launch ‘Sip & Sketch’ at dot-art Gallery, a chance to try handmade organic wines alongside drawing from still life.
‘The Liverpool Collection’ came to a close and we pursued ‘The Art of Line’ with three of our dot-art Artists whose work embodies graphic, illustrative and graffiti techniques. Moving across the city to ‘Art in the Ev’, Barbara Derecka’s exhibition on the first floor ‘Windows to the soul’ presented large scale urban landscapes, pop art animals and figurative art that is all about capturing different feelings.
As part of our long term partnership with the Everyman and Playhouse Theatres, in March we launched another Artist in Residence Exhibition.
Ali Barker began her Artist Residency in the beautiful theatres 6 months before her exhibition in the Everyman Theatre that brings together her artistic output from the tours of the theatres, sitting in on productions and meeting the team of staff.
Speaking about the residency, Ali says – “As a standalone project from my work expressing music, this residency has further developed my artistic practice involving the use of sound and my experiences of being in spaces. It has also brought into my thought process the consideration of how people use those spaces. I have had many more ideas during this residency than I can develop into finished paintings within the 6 months of the residency – there may be more to come out of this!”
As Ali Barker’s exhibition closed, in the same space we resumed our ‘Art in the Ev’ programme with painter and print maker Caroline Race. Her paintings are gentle and quiet, reflecting aloneness. She works with oil on canvas and linen as well as paper lithograph on Japanese tissue incorporated into some of the oil paintings.
Opening up our Public Vote in April for dot-art Schools, we invited the public, friends, family and peers to cast their vote for the artwork they love in the 2024 competition.
dot-art Schools is an annual, online, inter-school, art competition, culminating in a public exhibition of the winning artworks and prize giving ceremony. Each year we invite a judging panel of artists and art professionals to discuss and select the winners across Year 5’s and Year 9’s in the Liverpool City Region but the public vote is a great way to raise awareness of the competition, the importance of creativity in schools and show support to young people.
Throughout the year, dot-art Artist Madeleine Pires has been working with the community in Kirkdale on the ‘Flower Streets Murals‘ and in April we sat down with Culture Liverpool, Liverpool City Council and safer streets to evaluate the project so far. Evaluation framework is essential to our projects with communities and clients for development, future proofing and feeding back to funders and clients. We have proudly project managed large scale events, murals and participatory art projects in Liverpool for nearly two decades. If you have a project or commission in mind, get in touch to share your ideas.
Another large scale mural project we worked on this month was Joseph Venning’s ‘Liverpool Wall of Fame’ Mural for the ACC Liverpool.
Designed to highlight the figures from different eras who have defined the city’s cultural life. The mural has been funded by Liverpool BID Company’s Art & Culture Fund and has been developed by ACC Liverpool and dot-art.
May saw the first full week of our ‘Bread and Roses’ exhibition at dot-art. As an independent gallery we are about affordable art and this exhibition focused on works that were under £200! Everyone deserves the opportunity to own art, this show is likely to become an annual staple in our programme of exhibitions.
Flowers, birds and butterflies inhabit the portraits of Catherine Evans-Jones’ show ‘The Emotional Language of Form: Message of Hope’ at the Everyman Theatre on the first floor as part of ‘Art in the Ev’ – 2 week to 6 week long exhibitions by local artists as an opportunity to showcase and sell their work.
With Liverpool Art Fair on the horizon we put out the call to artists across the 35 miles radius of Liverpool City Centre to enter their work. Support from Liverpool Hope University meant we began recruiting from their Fine Art Students this year’s Liverpool Art Fair Sales Assistant and designing the vinyl’s and flyers for our 10th Birthday organising Liverpool Art Fair.
June is our most packed month of the year as we opened Liverpool Art Fair for our 10 year anniversary and held dot-art Schools prize giving ceremony and opened the dot-art Schools competition at the stunning Walker Art Gallery.
Liverpool Art Fair is an annual art exhibition, selling affordable paintings, prints and sculptures by artists from across the region. All artwork is under £2000 and we have a large section under £200 with limited edition prints starting at just £20. Our home since 2023 has been the Royal Liver Building; as an art fair that celebrates the best of Liverpool’s creativity, there is no better place to do this.
Celebrating creativity is the headline for June as in our dot-art Gallery we launched ‘A Window to Your Neighbourhood’ as part of the wider programme of Liverpool Architecture Festival. A competition exhibition to show us your neighbourhood with artistic flair, the winning artwork by Simon Ward entitled him to receive Art Vouchers and a year FREE as a dot-art Artist Member.
Shining a spotlight on young creative talent, across the UK we celebrated the winners of Art Bytes 2024 competition. Art Bytes is a unique platform that not only provides primary, secondary, and SEND schools across England the opportunity to participate in an inter-school art competition but also features cutting-edge virtual gallery technology.
July is all about Liverpool Art Fair and this year was our best selling year to date which is a very fitting celebration for our 10th Birthday. ‘A Window to Your Neighbourhood’ continued at dot-art and we had a brand new show at ‘Art in the Ev’.
Welcoming around 100 visitors a day, Liverpool Art Fair took over the ground floor of the Royal Liver Building and throughout our open weeks we programmed workshops with Cass Art for inspired creatives, artist talks with dot-art Artist Members and informative talks with BIPC.
The talks from dot-art Artist Members at LAF were well attended and created a personal insight in to their artworks. We prioritise creating new opportunities for our Members where they can platform their practice and enable more selling opportunities. Find out more about benefits from dot-art Artist Membership.
August closed the 2024 Liverpool Art Fair and opened ‘Figures in Space’ at dot-art Gallery.
Unfortunately due to circumstances out of our control, we did have to close Liverpool Art Fair early for the safety of our visitors, staff and Royal Liver Building. On 8th August we announced our People’s Choice Award winner, which was Hazel Thomson! We encourage all our LAF visitors to place their vote as part of their visit, this is a great way to support local artists without spending a penny.
‘Figures in Space’ was a duo-show of James Hallinan & Julie Lawrence. Gallery Manager Claire and our Managing Director Lucy Byrne saw great synergy in the two artists’ work and invited them to show their work together. A complimentary conversation, James and Julie share a reflective temperament on the impact of their body and mind through experiencing nature, solace and changes in environment. Their abstract figures boxed into rooms or distant on vast beaches are obscured, creating opportunity for the viewer to find a character and themselves within these works.
In September we sent out invitations to two of our forthcoming exhibitions; Join our Mailing List to be the first to hear about exhibitions, events and artist features.
Every month we feature an artist on our website home page, in our newsletter and on our ‘In the Studio’ blog post. In September the selected artist was West Kirby based Daniel Meakin and ask all the questions you would want to ask an artist; What inspires you? How do you know when the work is finished? What’s the best advice you have been given? Find out the answers here.
Gallery Manager Claire sat down with new dot-art Artist Members to find our more about their work, how we can support their artist career and set them up to successfully sell on our online shop. See our ‘Recently Added’ section to browse our growing community of local artists.
In October we held the private view for ‘Natural North’ at dot-art Gallery. An evening to see the exhibition for the first time, meet the exhibiting artists and sip on a complimentary glass of wine from our other independent neighbours R & H Fine Wines.
Rolling hillsides and a colder climate; this is the North of England. It holds the Lake District, the moors and the northern coast. The artists in this exhibition explore the far stretches of the ‘Natural North’ and all it’s natural beauty, devoid of the urban and man-made. ‘Natural North’ featured Richard Serridge, John Sharp and Katherine Dereli.
For the first time ever, we put out a Creative Course Survey to gain feedback on our programme offer and adapt the creative experiences we offer to schedules, locations and subjects that cater to our potential participants. Our team studied the feedback and turned it into action; Shorter courses, new locations, cheaper tickets and brand new areas such as Beginners Ceramics, Painting for Pleasure and Drawing Essentials. See what courses we are currently running here.
In November, we start decking the halls in the lead up to Christmas. We launched the 2024 Liverpool Collection exhibition with plenty of mince pies to go around and carols-a-ringing
‘The Liverpool Collection‘ is a unique opportunity to showcase our Artist Members; while our group shows often feature a select few, this exhibition highlights a diverse cross-section of artists we support — local, affordable, and committed to developing and showcasing their work in their home city.
Less than 5 minutes walk away at INNSiDE by Melia, our partner hotel we unveiled a new solo exhibition by Claire Western. This body of work titled ‘Echoes of Emotion’ is an abstract interpretation of the relationship between landscapes and music for Claire Western. “I spend a lot of time outside walking. I am drawn to timeworn and eroded aspects of the outdoors, rock formations, potholes and rusty gates – all reveal a timeline of colours.”
Located in the heart of the business district, dot-art loves to support local businesses to incorporate art into their offices that echoes their ethos. In November we collaborated with property firm The Momentum Group to help improve their new offices with some carefully selected, building based art work.
After looking at a range of options, they decided to purchase a series of five large scale architectural paintings by artist John Petch. As a finishing touch, they also commissioned John to produce a bespoke triptych to mark the business’s fifth birthday. The panels show their first office, their current office and Liverpool ONE, their biggest client. Read more about this corporate art Case Study here.
Closing out 2024 we launched our Winter Programme of Creative Courses. After launching a feedback survey we actioned your say on what? when? and where? when it comes to planning our 2025 offer of classes and courses.
We introduced new areas such as Beginners Ceramics, Painting for Pleasure and broadening our age range to 0-5 year olds so that young families can bond and get creative together. Shorter courses with affordable prices and 10% off art materials from our friends at Cass Art, there really is no time like the present to get creative! See what’s on here.
In early December was Small Business Saturday – a chance to join in a national effort to shout about what we do as an independent art gallery that champions creativity in everyday lives. Providing income artist opportunities through our online shop and gallery sales means we can grow the creative economy in our home of Liverpool. If you love art and want to support local business, please do consider browsing the plenty of art from local artists we have curated into exhibition collections and budgeted sections. Head to our online shop here.