There is precious little contemporary art exhibited in North Norfolk. So you have got to admire and support any show by the North Norfolk Exhibition Project. They hold a yearly open show in Wighton Parish Church. So the Wighton 25 show is called Site/Sight, - Contemporary art in the spirit of exploration. Which leaves you with a vague impression that the work was unfinished or merely preparatory in some way, and some of it did indeed look like an after thought..
I have grown accustomed to the presentation quality of exhibitions in Salthouse Church, which are always very carefully hung and curated. This one was a much more haphazardly arranged affair. With work unflatteringly presented halfway up a pillar, hung between pillars like a crucifixion, or, placed on pokey out of the way window ledges, as though exiled because it was a left over secondary piece. Not to mention interesting little assemblages placed so low down on tabletops and across pews so you'd hardly notice them. Some of the work here on show was frankly the sort of thing you do in an art foundation year.
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| Anne Lise Horsley |
The problem in a church setting is displaying work well. Because not everyone's work is suited to the size and space of a lofty church interior. Quite often interesting work here just got dwarfed. Far too small they would probably worked better in a more intimate location or gallery venue, but not here. But careful grouping and display would have helped. Instead there appeared to be a randomly scattered approach. If there was a coherent overall theme, I saw little of it.
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| Helen Breach |
Of the larger pieces, one was made from perspex and consisted of two large eyes, which peered out over the art assembled across the church beneath. Ahead of this swung delicately in the nave, was whar looked like a swan made of tissue paper, that looked like it had been ritually shot at dawn and hung on a hook like a trophy. Now, these may or may not be filled with 'the spirit of exploration' but some of the artwork here was the very definition of half baked ideas procured from, Duchamp, Beuys and Art Povera.
The best work was by the textile artists whose work we've seen and admired in Salthouse quite recently, Nicki Chandler, Cherri Vernon- Harcourt. Heidi McEvoy Swift. One fine piece by the ever consistent Debbie Lyddon. Some interesting use of found object assemblages by Viky Fenn and Richard Mills.
A evocative installation by Ros Copping & Jessica Loveday of prints and cut out paper shapes, onto which a film taken on the North Norfilk coast was projected. You saw some of shapes in film echoed in the hanging cards. It was a piece about childhood memory and their Mothers, which was quietly affecting.
Too much of the artwork here was either flippant novelty, aesthetically old hat or intellectually flimsy work, which was a real shame.
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| Debbie Lyddon |
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| Ros Copping & Jessica Loveday |
A evocative installation by Ros Copping & Jessica Loveday of prints and cut out paper shapes, onto which a film taken on the North Norfilk coast was projected. You saw some of shapes in film echoed in the hanging cards. It was a piece about childhood memory and their Mothers, which was quietly affecting.
One large paper hanging was of a very poorly drawn female figure with wide Earth Mother type hips, and extra large circular breasts with the neck and head of a swan emerging out of its shoulders. My first response was to laugh uproariously at this BoobySwan, I was in church so quietly on the inside of course. But it was just the most ridiculous and clumsily executed monstrosity.
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| Elizabeth Merman |
Too much of the artwork here was either flippant novelty, aesthetically old hat or intellectually flimsy work, which was a real shame.
CARROT REVIEW - 3/8
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