Author: dawn

Staffordshire Poetry

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Dawn was commissioned by Staffordshire County Council to create a series of images in response to the online poetry collection. An exhibition in Stafford Library with limited edition free postcards launched the collection before the images toured Staffordshire libraries.

Dawn also led workshops with poets and the public to collaborate on on new images to add to the collection. The full collection of images and poems can be found at: https://staffordshirepoetlaureate.wordpress.com/staffordshirepoetrycollection/

DUST 2020

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‘An Analysis of Dust Traces’, at PMAG, 2017

DUST 2020 was a series of exhibitions during 2017/18 by visual artists associated with the city to support Stoke-on-Trent’s city of Culture bid. The series took place in each of the six towns in heritage buildings at the heart of the community, aiming to make exhibitions accessible to raise the profile of visual art and artists in the city and to gain support for the bid.

Dawn is an associate artist with DUST Rising CIC and is one of the original members. She remains passionate about collaborating with other creatives to bring high quality visual arts programming and opportunities for the people city of Stoke-on-Trent.

I started my journey with DUST in the second exhibition at Tunstall Baths and developed the pieces in response to the heritage sites as the exhibition toured, leaving a trace of the previous work in each iteration. The final piece (l) was an autobiographical work that traced my associations with the city and included personal objects and images as well as elements of the pieces exhibited during the tour.

Longton Town Hall, 2018
‘Walks Interrupted; Trentham Series’, Fenton Library, 2018
Tunstall Baths, 2017
Wedgwood Institute, Burslem, 2017
Original images from Trentham Lake shown (left) in Tunstall Baths, 2017

Older Women Rock (the Potteries)

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Dawn Jutton, is one of the inspirational and innovative artists, involved in the project for ‘Older Women Rock The Potteries!’. She worked alongside spoken word poet Leah Thorn on the project to reflect the ideas of “Older Women Rock The Potteries!” through artistic works created specifically for the project including the ‘Scarf’, ‘Blazer’, ‘Apron’ and ‘Suitcase.’ The stirring meaning that has been defined through this artwork is spectacular. 

Keele University Art Gallery


Older Women Rock Pink Link Blazer, 2017

Displacement: Gainsborough Works

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a collaboration between Dawn Jutton & Eliza Bennett

Displacement, a site-specific installation, responds intuitively to the surrounding space, working with sculpture, photography, industrial refuse and discarded objects, repurposing the gathered materials, to compose a loosely choreographed site that explores the psychologically charged artefacts, evoking both loss and transformation, resulting in a meditation on displacement & belonging.

Evolving from our shared sympathy for the factory we came to occupy in its semi-abandoned state, this collaboration was sited in an old shoe factory and is a sort of geometry of echoes. Imbued with the passage of time the remnants we uncovered here have become talismans and relics of its story. The ghosts of the past seem rhythmically animated by the many feet that now come to dance upon the joists that once housed the machines and orderly rhythmic feet of productive workers.

from ‘Displacement’, Gainsborough Works, 2016
 Enter
 The long factory room, lengthening with each step, as it disappears in the darkness.
 The shadows of the day pass, across the room on the opposite wall. 
 Smudging fleeting marks, of lights caress upon the perceived inert totems.
 There’s a faint scent of something otherworldly, lingering…
 Fast diminishing with the odor of fresh paint and plaster.
 Falling light pools in black robes of fabric across the floor,
 Escorting the dead with its ghostly renderings
 Leaning against the invisible,
 Evening light arranges itself around the fallen leaves 
 And shadows lie at the feet of everything.
 
by Eliza Bennett

Looking for Venus

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‘Looking for Venus’ is one in a series of work started in the early 2000s that explore an individual experience of a body and femininity that do not conform to a contemporary Western ideal-or modern Venus.

Conceptally and visually there are many similarities in my responses to the seemingly disparate themes of landscape and feminism, and I am exploring bringing these together to create a narrative around the pressure on women to conceal their ‘natural’ selves and signs of ageing.

Beyond the Surface

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‘Beyond the Surface’ are two pieces created for the ‘Scapes exhibition at Guildhall Gallery, Stafford.

I re-visited Marston Road in the north end of Stafford, an area near to where I lived for many years, and where I have ben recording the changing architecture for three decades. The two pieces are constructed from found boxes and contain composite images inspired by the collected the memories of people I interviewed in the street and my own children’s memories. In ‘Beyond the Surface; No.1’

Whilst the found boxes relate on a personal level to a family history of regular unpacking and packing of boxes of belongings and childhood slideshows of our travels, the images explore different personal experiences and memories of a particular area at various times, encouraging a re-examining  of environment and personal relationships to space.

from ‘Beyond the Surface; No.1’
‘Beyond the Surface’ No.2

No Place Like Home

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The fifties is an important decade for understanding the social history of women as the influence of the period remains in much of twenty-first century life, from mass consumerism and advertising, to the constant media examination of the role of women.

This series has been inspired by the contrasting messages from second world war posters, which encouraged women to adopt strong roles and jobs traditionally associated with men, to fifties advertising persuading women back into the feminine safety of the home, family and gleaming perfection. This was only achievable according to advertisers, of course, by purchasing the latest labour saving devices or wearing the newest fashions, but above all by putting the needs of your husband and children first. However, the reality behind this projected veneer of harmony and perfect family life was that many women missed the camaraderie and independence afforded them in the nation’s war effort.

In each of the images the kitchen utensils have been individually photographed and digitally  ‘cut out’, whilst the other elements have been manipulated from fifties advertisements and magazine articles. The text has also been ‘borrowed’ from period sources and re-used to create a new context.

  • Exhibition
Giclee prints on matt,folio paper 40x30cm

Class 33

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An enduring obsession with the simple abstract beauty of distressed surfaces in a variety of environments is a recurring theme in my work. Careful composition and ʻaccidentalʼ colour relationships provide endless possibilities for images which still the impact of nature on human endeavour.

In this instance the source is trains in various states of repair/disrepair. This series continues on every visit to Bridgnorth, Chasewater, or Churnet, or anywhere the restoration of heritage railways is happening.




limited edition giclee prints on Baryta fine art paper, 59.4cm x 42cm

Staffordshire General Infirmary

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In early 1996 the Staffordshire General Infirmary in Stafford closed after two centuries of providing medical services to the town. The striking architecture of the original hospital building, now renovated into empty offices, still dominates Foregate Street, situated in the north of the town.

It was hard not to be struck by the atmosphere of the place. Even in the empty wards the instantly recognisable smells associated with the medical environment lingered. Various objects left lying around are reminiscent of a speedy evacuation; vases without flowers, card bedpans, bath mats and labels denoting appropriate storage spaces for a multitude of medical equipment, names for which seem almost comical to the untrained observer. The striking emptiness of these areas with their abandoned equipment and pastel decor provides all the visual clues to denote a sense of place.