dot-art Services CIC supports emerging and established visual artists across the region by helping them develop their careers and gain exposure and promotion for their work. dot-art also delivers a programme of public-access art classes across Liverpool alongside the dot-art Schools programme, an inter-school art competition, which launched in 2012.
dot-art’s work recognises the contribution that art and culture make to our wider community and wellbeing. As well as supporting visual artists and helping them make a living from their work, whatever their background, its goal is to enable everyone to enrich their lives through art. Working with around 100 member artists at any one time, dot-art develops and generates a wide range of projects for them to work on, from producing bespoke artwork for the interior of the Liver Building or delivering workshops in schools, to taking part in exhibitions. Member artists deliver around 4,000 participation hours every year, teaching everything from landscape painting to analogue photography to the public.
Member David Andrews ran sessions in 25 schools around the Anfield area. His project culminated in a community art work for Liverpool Football Club, alongside regularly delivering his popular one-day street art workshops.
“I really enjoy the variety of projects I get to work on through dot-art and the big name clients that I wouldn’t usually have access to if it wasn’t for their representation,” he says. “The LFC project is the largest one in my portfolio and I loved working with 500 children across North Liverpool, as well as staff from the club, to create this mural at Anfield.
“Being a member of dot-art has helped push my boundaries and comfort zones of being an artist to build my confidence, experience and portfolio. In the last five years of being a member, I have also had the chance to work with young people in foster care and pupil referral units, as well as creating murals for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, the 50th Anniversary of Sgt Pepper’s and two office blocks.”
Between 2012 and 2019 dot-art Schools worked with 398 schools, and 6781 students, across the North West. Notable outcomes from the programme include creating cultural participation that crosses geographic and demographic boundaries, raising pupils’ aspirations and building self-esteem.
Alongside being a regular contributor to Kindred Conversations, the dot-art team has been working with Kindred to better articulate its social impact as an organisation, and has been working on new bids to help take its work with schools national, with support from Kindred.
“Kindred is a really refreshing new approach to support for our sector,” says managing director Lucy Byrne. “Since we first engaged with Jo and Erika at the beginning of lockdown, both through one-to-one support and online events, I’ve felt that they’re genuinely here to help us and have the knowledge, experience and contacts to back it up. We are all experiencing tough times, but it really helps to know there is someone you can call on for practical help and realistic suggestions.”