Please support Liverpool for Japan

Ian and Minako Jackson have been great supporters of our art @ the incubator project so in return, I would like to support their efforts for helping the people of Japan after the earthquakes. Hope you are able to support them too.

I have taken this from their website:-

Soon after the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated NE Japan we started to hear of several fund-raising and other events to support the people affected by the tragedy. We decided to setup a website (www.liverpoolforjapan.com) very quickly to help publicise the events happening in Liverpool.

There have already been several events which raised thousands of pounds and there will be many more over the coming months. If you are organising or involved in any Japan fund-raising projects please contact us via the liverpoolforjapan website so we can post the details.

Here are a few of the upcoming events

‘Babie Sato: A Girl Who Smiles At Confidence Crisis’ exhibition at LJMU ADA – 15 April 2011

Performance in Aid of JAPAN TSUNAMI APPEAL at The Pilgrim – 19 April 2011

The Print Aid Project – Liverpool Photographers raise money for Japan earthquake victims

ART AID AUCTION Liverpool for Japan – at Studio 2, 12 May 2011

We are also (along with Japanese residents, Threshold and CUC) organising a ‘Smiles For Japan‘ daytime family-friendly event followed by evening music event at CUC in Mid May so please keep checking the website for full details.

Please also ‘like’ the facebook page and follow on twitter.

You can also send messages, thoughts and positive words to Japan via the Messages To Japan website

"Landscape" opened on the 13th of April

A beautiful range of work from 4 local artists representing the landscape in painting and drawing and woodturning is currently on display in the incubator building until the 25th of May. With the corridors adorned with images of North Wales, Cheshire and Liverpool and turned bowls made from wood from local parks and gardens in three cabinets, it feels fresh and colourful in the grey walls of the building.

"Landscape" opens on the 13th of April: Feature Rowena Ferguson

Rowena Fergusson is an artist with a studio in Chester but I first encountered her detailled work in last year's Liverpool Independents, in a temporary exhibition space set up in the Georgian surroundings of Hamilton Square in Birkenhead. The gallery space was set up for 3 months and called "The Six Rooms Gallery" and housed 35 artists over three exhibitions.

"My current body of work aims to simplify the colour and stylise the textures and forms in the landscape. Each work, has within it areas of intense detail, which I take particular pleasure in observing and representing.

I have always painted the landscape and love observing nature as it continually changes with the seasons."

Event registration for "Landscape" exhibition at MerseyBIO - Private View 13/4/11 5.30-7.30pm powered by Eventbrite

"Landscape" opens on the 13th of April: Feature Linda Evans

Wirral based artist, Linda Evans uses her work to explore personal imagery derived from the slate mining area of Snowdonia (Eryri) North Wales.

"My emotional response to this landscape is essential to my creative process. With this series of contemporary works, I am striving to provide a new perspective on the intriguing abstract shapes within the landscape of the moors which surround the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog. I often start with sketches done on sight and then develop them later in my studio. I paint with acrylics, a medium I find very versatile, adding strong black lines to create structure. To add movement and define the abstract shapes I draw with pastels over the finished work."

"Landscape" opens on the 13th of April: Feature Mike Rule

I was first acquainted with Mike Rule's bowls and platters during an exhibition at Alex Corina's venue in Garston. I feel Chumki Banerjee who reviewed the same exhibition at the time, perfectly describes his work:-

"Having been struck dumb by the beautiful portrait, I was then rendered completely speechless by the extraordinary beauty of Mike Rules, wood "sculptures", I don't know what else to call them, though many are functional, bowls, vessels, vases and such like, those words do not begin to describe Mike's unbelievably stunning pieces, spanning twelve years of honing his craft and individual style.

Moving from working commercially sourced wood to unseasoned and sometimes diseased or decaying wood, "scavenged" from tree surgeons, Mike reveals nature's art, even amidst the death throes of these fallen soldiers.

In his hands imperfections and decay are burnished and polished in celebration of nature's soul which glows in all her creations, however broken or fallen and glows again in Mike's work.

I cannot begin to imagine the patient hours and skill required to shape such forms of organic beauty from a single piece of wood. In particular, the narrow necked vases are astonishing in their construction but all are unique, decorated by nature's own hand, glorious patinations revealed by Mike's sympathy for his materials.

My favourites are the spatted or burr wood pieces, formed from felled wood invaded by fungus or the "abnormal wart like growths on the side of a main trunk", fragile beauty captured and preserved a moment before crumbling and a return to the earth that gave them birth, ashes caught mid flight.

However, every piece is exceptional in capturing the colorations and striations of natural wood, from beech to ash, yew, wild olive and a plethora of other woods, the individuality of each highlighted with such sympathy it is almost possible to not imagine the landscape of their lives."

"Landscape" opens on the 13th of April: Feature Phil Dowling

Liverpool artist, Phil Dowling has been painting portraits and landscapes for nearly 30years. His main interest in painting landscapes is to capture natures abstract qualities, its light, colour, mood,but above all its energy in a harmonious way. 
Phil says his feelings about painting are best summed up in the words of french painter Pierre Bonnard.


"It's not a matter of painting life; its a matter of giving life to a painting”