Our love of dogs has been part of our national identity for centuries and affection for our canine companions shows no sign of waning.

This exhibition shows the work of international artists, designers, illustrators and photographers who use dogs as their subject matter and inspiration. The show will look at the influence and impact that dogs have had on these artists’ practise and will also give a brief insight into how dogs have become such an integral part of our lives.

This family friendly exhibition includes a host of dog themed interactives and competitions. Visitors can draw and display their ‘pooch pawtraits’, share what their dog means to them, display their favourite dog photos, and find out what they’d look like as a dog, using our specially commissioned digital interactive.

Artists;

Sophie Ryder

Sophie Ryder graduated from the Royal Academy in 1986 and was the youngest student since JMW Turner. Whilst there, Sophie was the only student allowed to have a dog on site her dog named ‘Bear’ was her model. In this exhibition, Sophie is showing a large scale drawing of her smallest greyhound, ‘Storm’, as well as a bronze sculpture entitled ‘Dancing Dogs’.

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William Wegman

American Artist, William Wegman, is renowned for his photographs and videos which feature his pet Weimaraner dogs. In 1970 William acquired his first Weimaraner who he named Man Ray, and a long and fruitful collaboration began. William is exhibiting two pigment prints which feature Fay and her daughter, Batty, as well as a video called ‘Alphabet Soup’, which stars Fay and her offspring – Batty, Crooky and Chundo.

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David Shrigley

David Shrigley’s work is surreal and humorous. His distinctive, almost child-like drawings and paintings convey a sense of irreverence and dark satire. In September 2019, David’s sculpture ‘Really Good’ was unveiled on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London. David is exhibiting six paintings and line drawings rendered in his trademark ‘off the wall’ sense of humour.

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Gerrard Gethings

Gerrard is a fine art photographer. In 2008 he brought home a seven week old Border Terrier called Baxter and with that he found the photographic subjects that were to be his muse.
Gerrard is exhibiting 16 pairs of humorous, cleverly curated images of dogs and their human lookalikes.

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Rafael Mantesso

On his 30th birthday, Brazilian artist, Rafael Mantesso’s wife left him, taking everything but their dog whom she had named after her favourite shoe designer – Jimmy Choo. Finding himself along in an all-white apartment, Rafael began photographing Jimmy as he cavorted around their home. When Jimmy finally took a rest next to a white wall, Rafael grabbed a marker pen and drew a new world around his dog. These whimsical illustrations became an overnight Instagram sensation and led to an approach from Jimmy Choo’s Creative Director, Sandra Choi, who commissioned a series of illustrations to decorate a range of Jimmy Choo accessories. Rafael is showing nine images featuring his beloved dog, along with an animated film produced for Jimmy Choo to promote his commissioned line of accessories.

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Holy Smoke

Inspired by a photograph of an Egyptian embalmed dog in the National Geographical Magazine in 2011, Welsh artist, Helen Thompson, founded Holy Smoke and began making textile animal sculptures. Using natural linen and vintage textiles in muted tones, Helen layers and hand stitches fabrics onto wire armatures to create beautiful, ethereal canine sculptures that convey pathos and humour in equal measure. Helen is showing a specially commissioned piece for this exhibition, entitled ‘Dog with Nest’.

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Martha Todd

London based ceramic artist, Martha Todd, is showing four ceramic dog heads which explore the way we pamper our pooches, from dressing them in designer clothes to carrying them around in handbags.

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Shauna Richardson

Shauna Richardson was born in Northern Ireland, studied at De Montfort University, Leicester and now lives in Norfolk. She creates amazing crochet sculptures and has coined the term Crochetdermy® to describe her process. Shauna is exhibiting her life-size ‘Crochetdermy® Hound’.

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Lucy Casson

Lucy takes commonplace household objects such as tin cans and scrubbing brushes and combines these with printed tin, carved wood and sculpted wire to create her wonderfully humorous ‘three dimensional cartoons’. These depict everyday scenes and situations and often involve endearingly naughty dogs. For this exhibition, Lucy has created five specially commissioned artworks.

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Mychael Barratt

In 2002, after visiting a Marc Chagall exhibition, Mychael found himself contemplating what the artist’s dog would look like. This marked the start of Mychael’s ‘Artists’ Dogs’ project that, over 20 years and more than 50 prints later, is still going strong. Mychael takes a well-known artwork, and using the same technique and approach as the original artist, skilfully inserts a dog into the picture. From Matisse to Cindy Sherman and Rembrandt to Bansky, Mychael’s dog themed artworks cover the gamut of art history, Mychael is exhibiting three prints based on the work of contemporary artists.

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Bryony Rose Jennings

Every one of textile artist Bryony Rose Jennings’ beautiful sculptures start with vintage and reclaimed fabric she has been given or has found in charity shops. She finds inspiration in the textures, patterns and colours and endeavours to capture personality and character over realism. For the exhibition, Bryony has created a beautiful sculpture of a pair of long-legged lurchers running together.

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Michael Gillette

Swansea born and raised graphic designer and illustrator, Michael Gillette, has spent his life involved with indie pop culture and has created record sleeve artworks for high profile bands. In 2001 he ‘dared himself’ and moved to San Francisco. In 2020 he produced a series of drawings for a book entitled ‘Pack of Dogs’, where he cleverly anthropomorphised canines to give them the features of 42 famous musicians. Michael is showing six of these drawings in the exhibition.

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John Bond

John Bond is an artist, illustrator and author based in Worthing on the south coast. After graduating from Kingston University, London, he worked for an elite creative agency for seven years before going it alone. Dogs feature heavily in John’s work and in 2019 he had a solo exhibition in Berlin called ‘Dog Daze’. John is currently illustrating a series of children’s books with award-winning author, Peter Bentley, including ‘Dogs in Disguise’. John is showing nine of his humorous photo doodle dogs which he creates using pictures of everyday food and household items as his starting point.

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Zoe Whiteside

Zoe, who studied at Staffordshire University and the Royal College of Art, works from her studio in Shropshire. Her work is a celebration of animals, with a particular focus on dogs. Her influences are drawn from Staffordshire Creamware, T’ang sculptures and antiquity. She endeavours to capture the spirit her subjects and uses slips and glazes, which she formulates herself, to achieve subtleties in surface texture and colour. Zoe will be showing a pair of hound heads and a group of hounds in the exhibition.

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Sally Muir

Sally Muir is based in Bath and is a prodigious painter of dogs. She attended university as a mature art student and was awarded a First Class Honours degree in 2003. Sally has produced three best selling books featuring her dog portraits: ‘A Dog a Day’, ‘Old Dogs’ and ‘Rescue Dogs’. Sally will be showing a group of seven dog portraits which expertly capture the character of the sitter. Sally’s books will also be exhibited alongside the work.

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Ryan K Taylor

Ryan K Taylor is an artist and designer based in Toronto, Canada. Using AI, he creates otherworldly images which sit between the realm of vintage past and fantastical future. Each image is paired with a curious story, further enhancing the magical fantasy. Ryan is showing four images in the exhibition.

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Sophie Gamand

Sophie Gamand is a French photographer, artist and animal advocate based in Los Angeles. She is exhibiting a selection of nine images from her ‘Pit Bull Flower Power’ series of photographs. For this project Sophie photographed over 450 shelter pit bull dogs wearing handmade flower crowns. These portraits have often lead to adoptions. Some of her models waited up to eight years before their portraits connected them with an adopter.

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Georgina Warne

Georgina Warne’s work is inspired by nature and focuses on the details, qualities and subtle colour of the flora and fauna that is her stimulus. As a ceramicist and printmaker she combines both practices in her work, often printing directly onto clay to create beautifully detailed surface pattern on her animal sculptures. Georgina is exhibiting one of her exquisite ‘Kimono Dogs’ in this exhibition.

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Gemma Rees

Following a degree in Visual Communications and an MA in Illustration, Gemma has added a new dimension to her work in recent years, moving from 2D work to sculpture. Using metal, wire, paper and paperclay, Gemma has developed a special technique for creating a dog’s coat, which she then paints with acrylic and watercolour paint.

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Whatshisname

Whatshisname, aka Sebastion Burdon, is a Polish born artist based in London. His work is a humorous take on popular culture and he enjoys working with resin to create three dimensional works of art. For this exhibition, he is showing one of his ‘Pooping Popek’ sculptures inspired by Jeff Koon’s famous ‘Balloon Dog’ series of artworks.

 

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Lazerian

For this exhibition, Manchester based creative design studio Lazerian has created ‘Mans Best Reassembled Friend’ – a sculpture constructed from found objects including worn out footballs and other dog related ephemera, as well as disused digital equipment.

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Margaret Couch Cogswell

American artist, Margaret Cogswell is a storyteller at heart and uses a wide range of media as a vehicle for her tales. Despite considering herself to be a cat person, she has always had a dog image obsession. Margaret isn’t 100% sure why she repeatedly makes dogs, but she loves their form, their personalities, their infinite colour patterns and their ‘dogness’. Margaret is exhibiting three paper-mache dog sculptures in this exhibition.

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Dog Illustrations

The exhibition also includes a display of 13 illustrations from well known dog-themed children’s books by renowned illustrators. These are: Nick Sharratt, Mei Matsuoka, Emmanuelle Walker, Alice Bowsher, Chris Chatterton, Helen Stephens, Adam Stower, Tor Freeman, Jo Williamson, Nicola Kent, Emma Lazell, Claudia Boldt and John Bond. A set of books which each of these illustrations comes from will also be provided for display.

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Interactives

The exhibition includes a number of interactives:

Mutts in a Muddle – A magnetic jigsaw style interactive where visitors can put together a selection of dog illustrations created by artist Mei Matsuoka. Alternatively, they can create their own unusual dog.

Name that Dog– A magnetic interactive where visitors are asked to name famous dogs from film and TV.

I Love my Dog – Visitors can write why they love their dog onto wipe clean, magnetic bones and then display these on a magnetic board.

Pooch Pawtraits – Visitors can draw and display a portrait of their dog.

Strike a Doggy Pose – A digital interactive where visitors can superimpose their eyes and mouth onto a series of dogs’ heads to see what they’d look like as a pooch.

Name the Breed Competition – The exhibition includes 10 artist made paper-mache dog heads with numbered collars which can be displayed around the exhibition or venue. Visitors have to find the dogs and then name the breed. This can be run as a competition with a prize. (Hire venue to provide the prize).

About the Exhibition

The exhibition requires approximately 250 to 350 sqm but can be adapted to fit a range of spaces.

The basic hire fee for the exhibition is £3500 + VAT per 8 week period, plus the cost of onward transportation and includes;

• Delivery of the exhibition. The hire venue must provide assistance with the unloading and loading of the exhibition.
• Assistance with the draft layout plan of the exhibition. The hire venue must provide detailed gallery plans with measurements and images).
• Assistance with the installation and dismantling of the exhibition. The hire venue must provide technical assistance to install the exhibition.
• All display equipment.
• A range of gallery interactives.
• 2 x A1 text panels, A4 panels about each participating artist and exhibit labels.
• Pink laser cut metal title sign (H:45cm x 120cm) and white fur fabric to line the entrance wall.
• 2 x TV monitors to show the William Wegman film and the Rafael Mantesso animation.
• A marketing pack to include a draft press release and high quality publicity images with cleared permission for use.

(Please note, if the venue is more than a three hour drive away from 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, there will be additional transport and accommodation costs).

Exhibition Availability

13 December 2025 to 31 January 2026

28 November 2026 to 23 January 2027

6 February 2027 to 11 April 2027

18 September 2027 to 20 November 2027

A Dog’s Life is a 20-21 Visual Arts Centre Touring Exhibition

For further information, please call our Touring Exhibitions Officer on 01724 297070 (Monday to Wednesday) or email: janine.parrish@northlincs.gov.uk