Exhibition: The Drawing (Paper) Show 2025Bridewell Studios & Gallery, L7 8UL
Date(s): 11/07/2025 - 31/07/2025
12:00 pm - 4:00 pm
The Drawing (Paper) Show is an international drawing exhibition and publication. Established by Colette Lilley (@colettelilley), Sarah Jane Richards (@walk.draw.paint) and Jon Barraclough (@j0ni0la) in 2023 the exhibition, curated from drawings submitted from an open call, via Instagram. The Exhibition of around 50 artist’s work is held at The Bridewell Studios and Gallery, as part of the Liverpool Independents Biennial.
More details to be announced – Launch event & workshop programme
Background:
The Directory of Drawing Artists (DoDA) is a searchable directory that allows people to find artists who specialise in, or who exhibit, drawings. It’s open to artists who have exhibited in the Drawing (Paper) Shows and provides a platform for their work, together with a simple means to sell work or take commissions. 100% of any sales or fees goes directly to the artists.
The Drawing Shows (at Arena Studios and Gallery (2019) and The Bridewell Studios and Gallery (2020)) were exhibitions co-curated by Colette Lilley and Sarah Jane Richards and aimed to raise the profile of drawing artists in the North West of the UK. In 2023 they teamed up with Jon Barraclough, co-founder of The Drawing Paper, to present an independent exhibition and publication of contemporary drawing practitioners.
Drawing Paper is a printed, large-format newspaper-based ‘gallery’ concerned solely with contemporary drawing practice. Published, curated and designed in Liverpool, UK by Mike Carney and Jon Barraclough, it’s an independent, not for profit project essentially about showcasing a wide variety of drawing styles, approaches and methods.
It’s a free publication, distributed around galleries and studios largely in Liverpool and Manchester although copies have been sent to drawing-focused venues all over the world.
Issues 1 to 9 are also available as online publications here.
About Bridewell Studios & Gallery:
In 1976 a small group of artists rented a derelict police station and established Bridewell Studios. Artspace Merseyside was formed in 1981 as a not for profit limited company to run the organisation and after the demise of Merseyside County Council the artists secured a loan to buy the property. In 2007 English Heritage gave the building a Grade 2 listing and in 2015 the company became a charity.
Constructed circa 1846 as a police station, the large red brick building is situated on the corner of a busy thoroughfare on the eastern edge of Liverpool city centre and just opposite The Royal Liverpool University Hospital. There is much evidence of its original function still visible including a Detective Office sign at the foot of the staircase and the row of cells.
Over the last 42 years many artists have worked or had connections with the studios and gallery, including Adrian Henri, Richard Young, Stephen Broadbent, Maurice Cockrill, Ian McKeever, Anish Kapoor and the singer/songwriter David Gray. The building itself became famous in the 1980’s as one of the locations for Alan Bleasdale’s ‘Boys from the Blackstuff’.
The Bridewell currently hosts 35 studio based artists and craftspeople whose creative practice includes painting, stone/wood sculpture, jewellery, stained glass, textiles, print-making, ceramics, metal and multi media.
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