DORSET ART WEEKS 2021 (21 MAY - 6 JUNE)

DORSET ART WEEKS 2021 3 DORSET ART WEEKS returns this year in a slightly different form. After the extraordinary eighteen months we have all experienced artists and makers are looking forward to showing work that has been made during this time of lockdown and Coronavirus. Many artists have been unable to travel even to their studios. Some have made work in direct response to the pandemic whereas others have continued their practice without referencing current affairs. The brochure is online this year allowing participants to adjust their opening times to take account of government guidelines on opening venues as they happen. Some artists are only showing their work online so please check their entries before you set out to visit them. There is some very exciting new painting on show from long-established artists through to recent graduates and students. Major UK artist BRIAN RICE has returned to themes that his much younger self explored which he recently decided needed to be revisited. His stunning new paintings explore intersecting geometric forms using powerfully vibrant colour. They will be on show at his studio in Hewood, alongside a selection of prints, many of which have only one or two remaining from their original print run. Venue 7. Another veteran of Art Weeks is ROB WOOLNER. His latest work is linear and ruled with either vertical or horizontal lines. Gone are the rough edges though the grid is still in evidence. They are very beautiful. His recent sources of reference are grids, plans, surfaces and natural and found objects, resulting in images that are quiet and contemplative and need slow looking. Venue 14. CLARE HAWKES graduated from AUB in 2019 and has since focused on abstraction. She uses paint as a vehicle to represent issues of invisibility both in historical art and in contemporary life, mainly related to women. Her areas of interest and research encompass not only the way that major women painters have been sidelined but also how men have represented women in their work from Soutine to Francis Bacon. Historically from the Renaissance and even earlier women are often represented as mythological figures rather than as real people. Her Europa series are large and fleshy using paint as a viscous physical medium. Venue 274. There is always a debate to be had about the relative positions of art and craft within fine art. JACY WALL’s work straddles these boundaries in her textiles. Traditionally, Visit the Dorset Art Weeks 2021 website CLARE HAWKES (VENUE 274)