Lede
Dawny Tootes has created a beautiful display space for her own sculptures and the work of local artists.

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The sparkling sculpture on show at the Dockside Art Gallery is almost as dazzling as artist-owner Dawny Tootes and her fabulous gallery manager, Petra Bourne. They are not only a dedicated gallery space, but they are also a place for a welcome and a warm chat for the local community and visitors alike.

Dawny began her training as an artist in Birkenhead Technical College which is part of John Moore University. She continued her fine art education at NEWI, Glandwr University, Wrexham, Wales. Having moved to North Pembrokeshire, she was introduced to the MB Fine Arts foundry in Clynderwen by her Art dealer and mentor Myles Pepper of West Wales Arts Centre, Fishguard. Having always loved sculpture, the foundry is where Dawny really found the material she was inspired by– recycled aluminium.

Dawny now creates her sculptures from her farm-based foundry studio at the foot of the Preseli Mountains. Here she keeps a custom-built crucible that can melt down eight alloy car wheels, from which she makes her fluid sculptures of molten aluminium. These sculptures range from romantic hearts, to fearsome Welsh dragons, to epic wall mounted landscape compositions, large scale trees and life size free-standing works of female forms – her ‘Muses’.

Along with Dawny’s works, the gallery also mounts exhibitions by local artists, and also stocks a range of carefully curated and locally sourced crafts and postcards. Located on Pembroke Dock’s main thoroughfare Dimond Street, the gallery is a must visit when you travel through or, better still, stay in Pembroke Dock.