Several Dorset artists will be showcasing their works in West Bay as part of Dorset Art Weeks.

Sladers Yard contemporary art gallery will be hosting Charmouth-based Vanessa Gardiner’s most recent paintings and drawings from May 18 until July 12.

The exhibition called Sea Cliffs will form part of Dorset Art Weeks, which returns from May 25 to June 9.

The art festival includes more than 250 venues throughout Dorset, including activities and exhibitions celebrating the best of fine art, craft and making from across the county.

There are a number of participating venues in Bridport, Beaminster, Broadwindsor, Chideock, Lyme Regis, Abbotsbury, and surrounding villages.

The Sladers Yard exhibition will feature Vanessa’s paintings of landscapes such as Boscastle, Tintagel and Godrevy in Cornwall, as well as the Scottish islands of Orkney.

The defining features of Vanessa's work includes clean lines, dynamic surfaces and thrilling coastal subject matters.

Her work practice also echoes the process of erosion, with surfaces scoured and abraded, layered and scrubbed back using the media and the texture of the surface to describe her subject.

Speaking about the locations in her paintings and drawings, she said: “Quite extraordinary to find a landscape that so mirrors my way of working. Cliff formations of strata, fissures and scored ledges.

“Rhythmic sequences of folding rocks and headlands. I was struck by the monumental slab-like pavements of rock which plunge vertiginously into the surrounding sea. A natural architecture.”

Joining the main exhibition at the art gallery will also be studio pottery from Shaftesbury-based Yo Thom, which is inspired by Dorset and draws on Japanese and British pottery traditions.

Sladers Yard is also the showroom for designer craftsman Petter Southall’s steam bent furniture and wood works, and visitors will also be able to see his work during the exhibition.

He has been making his distinctive furniture, and more recently architectural and sculptural pieces, in Dorset since 1989.

Downstairs at the contemporary art gallery other leading Dorset artists will be on display, including Alex Lowrey, Frances Hatch, Julian Bailey, Caroline Sharp among others.

Vanessa will also be hosting a talk on Friday, June 21 at 7pm, also at Sladers Yard.

Tickets are £12 with doors opening at 6pm and hot food will be available from the bar.

To find out more information about the exhibition visit www.sladersyard.wordpress.com/sea-cliffs-18-may-14-july/

To find out about Dorset Arts Week visit www.dorsetartweeks.co.uk