Visit to #Southport and #TheAtkinson art gallery

Our daughter was attending the British musical firework championship so we decided to meet up with her for the day. Fortunately, it stayed dry most of the day. It's been a long time since we have visited the art gallery there and it was a surprise to see how much it had changed due to lottery etc funding. 

We started on the top floor entering a historical area showing Southport's development with information, artifacts and artwork. 

In the next area was a collection of memorabilia with toys such as Meccano and a cabinet of items related to Dan Dare, a character from the Eagle comic. I remember him slightly but it did promote an interesting conversation about how they saw us living in the 1990's, with technology  and space travel. One of the staff even joined in and was very friendly as we talked about this topic.

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Next, was the Egyptian room where a range of artefacts were on show with information about the ancient Egyptians.  As we arrived at the gallery, the mummy was being taken away to be x-rayed which, we were informed, was an exciting event for the gallery.

​Moving on we came to a room entitled Cross Pollination.

Here were a range of interpretations of the theme and featured a variety of work both traditional and more abstract.

After viewing these we moved through to the next room. Here we came upon a room called Black Presence an exhibition by  Nahem Shoa

Using paintings from other artists to introduce the theme, he then included a range of his own very impressive pieces. I'm not sure how true his statement is but his work was very moving. I have done a lot of portrait studies over the years but  unfortunately, I have not had much experience as I would have liked,to experiment capturing the nuances of colour needed for these skin tones.

As a complete contrast, the next room we entered featured the designs of Vivienne Westwood. It was interesting to see these designs and look at the fashions from the past. 

Finally, before going downstairs we walked on to 'The Landing'  where work, by invited artists, were on show. It was good to see that the gallery included these, as often there are no places for upcoming artists to showcase their work in the modern art gallery.

Also included in the arts complex, were a theatre, a shop, a café, as well as areas to study and places for children to participate in artwork.
All in all, a building that other art galleries should aspire to with a range of exhibitions that are varied and offered something for everyone.