DORSET ART WEEKS 2021 (21 MAY - 6 JUNE)

5 been a very difficult year for university students. Their work reveals their deep concerns for the environment and their futures. SADIE ASTON’s hard-hitting graphic paintings explore issues around human and animal extinction. DYLAN LEDDINGTON’s drawings of interior and landscapes alongside his oil paintings explore possibilities for future dystopian landscapes. EDEN ALARCON is an environmental activist working in photography, paint, clay and sound. She is interested in drawing her viewers into a more proactive role in her artwork. IVY PAHLEVAN’s work is usually concerned with exterior of the human body but her recent project in collaboration with the Structural Genomics Consortium in Oxford as part of her second year studies at AUB gave her the opportunity to explore further. Working with a range of materials and painted and collaged paper she explores the molecules, blood cells and proteins that are unseen beneath the surface of the skin. Venue 130. Since 1991 POOLE PRINTMAKERS have been providing opportunities and equipment to artists making etchings, lithography, letterpress, lino-cuts, woodblock and silkscreen prints. STEVE BAMFORD joined them after retiring from his career as a graphic designer and is showing some exciting and vibrant screen prints. Venue 37. LUCAS WESCHKE will be showing his beautiful block prints at Furleigh Estates alongside a group of makers which includes furniture maker SIMON THOMAS PIRIE and potter YO THOM. Weschke has consistently refined his process, abstracting from his original drawings, to produce his strong yet simple shapes and colours. Venue 92. Based in Abbotsbury, ANDREW DUMOLO makes beautiful hardwood furniture to commission. His pieces have a fineness and elegance which is reminiscent of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Venue 40. CLARE WILSON is a photographer making photographs across a range of techniques including Lumen photography, which is a cameraless process. Her work is often concerned with landscape and she is acutely aware that as a concept it is essentially a man- made construct. During lockdown she worked on a project Landings 2020 making Lumens of constructed landscapes inside her house. As lockdown lifted she started to print them on large sheets of material which she then installed outside suspending them from bridges and between trees. Venue 164. A group of educators at BRYANSTON SCHOOL will be showing a variety of work from painting and printmaking to ceramics and photography, from abstract to figurative. Photographer SUE MACPHERSON teaches part-time at the school. Some of the works on show will be from her annual trips to Africa to photograph children and schools for the Henry Van Straubenzee Memorial Fund, a charitable foundation dedicated to improving the quality of education in Uganda. Venue 74. This has been a strange year with many cancelled shows and most creative activity going online. What Dorset Art Weeks 2021 proves though is that there has been an outpouring of work in every conceivable media by artists regardless of whether it is influenced by what has been happening in the outside world. Fiona Robinson dorsetartweeks.co.uk Download the Dorset Art Weeks 2021 app DORSET ART WEEKS 2021 SIMON THOMAS PIRIE (VENUE 92) JOHN AUSTIN-WILLIAMS (VENUE 29)