Three Counties art exhibition marks 30th year

More than 140 artists are being featured in regional art exhibition as it celebrates its 30th anniversary.

The Three Counties Open Art Exhibition, which brings together artists from Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire, has returned to Fenton Town Hall in Stoke-on-Trent until 29 August.

This year's event had attracted the highest number of submissions since the exhibition began three decades ago and was the "largest display of artwork in its history", organisers said.

Kerry Jones, from event organisers ArtsKeele at Keele University, added: "The quality and variety of work on display demonstrates the strength of artistic talent across the three counties."

Among artists whose work is on display is Emily Galvin-Wilson, who became Staffordshire's first female Poet Laureate in 2017.

She said she didn't have the most straightforward introduction to art.

"At school, I was put off because I struggled with realism and wasn't encouraged to develop my artistic side. It wasn't until later that I discovered watercolour as a hobby, often using it alongside my poetry," she said.

Galvin-Wilson's piece on display, called Take Me Out To Sea, was a mixed media abstract piece "created as a response to music through synaesthesia".

"After having my daughter, I found it difficult to find large blocks of time to make art, and so I began to curate 15-to-20-minute playlists for myself, which created little pockets of atmosphere to complete a piece in bursts over the course of weeks," she explained.

This year's exhibition received a record 308 submissions, with exhibitors ranging from 16 to 91-years old, organisers said.

It features a wide range of creative work, including painting, printmaking, drawing and photography, as well as sculptures and textiles.

Visual artist, Laurel Gallagher, a former secondary school art teacher who now works under the name Feral State, is exhibiting a self-portrait diptych, digital photograph at the showcase.

"Art is always the thing that carries me through change. Every period of transformation in my life, art has been there," she said.

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