Perhaps it sneaked in quietly, or perhaps it simply wasn't as aggressively publicised as last year's offering, but the Sefton Open 2026 has arrived, having quietly occupied the galleries since the twilight days of March. What follows is an appraisal of the stand-out pieces from this year's instalment.
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| There has yet to be a year where the formidable Sam Cookson fails to arrest my attention. This metallic sprite dubbed «Badger Buster», alongside that industrious frog which reminds me dreadfully of myself, stand as superlative examples of Cookson's whimsical humour and impeccable craftsmanship. |
 | «Natural habitat» by Sam Cookson
 | | Regard this striking twilight vista: it is «Crosby night and day» by Alan Joyce. My insufficiently advanced apparatus utterly fails to do it justice—one need only consult Antony Gormley's Iron Man, barely discernable in the photograph—but this romantic viewpoint is destined to become my digital desktop backdrop. Need I even comment on the exquisite modulation from deep oceanic blues to that vibrant, Iberian orange tucked behind the horizon's cloud bank? |
 | In a coastal enclave such as ours, nautical themes are very much a matter of course, and indeed they abound. Yet this particular piece by Jane Hunt, «A tail of two lovers», plunges rather deeper, employing a delicate display of pointillism to masterfully articulate the ephemeral nature of the seahorse. |
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