ART 'N' AB ART - Legacy - Brenda Unwin & Sarah Caputo - Cromer Art Space Exhibition

Cromer Art Space exhibitions have been, in terms of artistic quality at least, a bit erratic this year. I read the synopsis for this one, looked at the photo in the programme and my thoughts tended towards dismissive.  It bore, so I thought, all the hallmarks of a worthy theme, whose artworks might turn out to be underwhelming as an experience. But, I was completely wrong in making that prejudicial assessment. This is by far the best Art Space exhibition of the 2026 season. And one I'd recommend you try and see before the 27th July, its final day.

It explores the theme legacy through generations of environmental damage to the Norfolk coastal environment, whilst also being, in a variety of innovative ways, an aesthetic experience. Ceramic interlocked curves arranged like sea defenses in a sand pit, cast from collages of found beach objects and drawings etched into its surface, with delicate coloured glazes. Unwin and Caputo often work collaboratively, with ideas bounced between them, whilst each explores through there own preffered medium, whether that be ceramic or printmaking.

So we have large screen printed hangings with angular colourful arrangements of image and text. Walls of a wide range of mono colour Collograph prints composed from plates of found objects and textures.  Fascinating cylindrical casts, like core samples, of objects trapped within plaster, as though frozen in their layers of time and origin. Or part sculptural, part specimen, stacked monoliths  These bore distant echoes of Kurt Schwitters Merz projects where space ended up getting smaller as objects became more deeply buried within its walls.  The elements of time and degradation are rarely missing from the aesthetic here. We have not just recently arrived at this particular point in the climate crisis, it's foundations were laid in the Industrial Revolution.  Our reckless disregard for the effects of our industry upon the natural world is now all too visible in the stratigraphy, in the oceans, and within us.  There is so much in this exhibition that could well require a second visit.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8