ART 'N' AB ART - Undercurrent - Wighton 26 Exhibition

This annual exhibition of contemporary art made by Norfolk artists has been running for 26 years. Each year a different artist or artists curates the selection. This is only the second year we have stopped off to view it, and though this seemed a better selection overall than last year, that really isn't saying much. Ian McGilchrist in a recent lecture, bemoaned art that need a A4 sheet of text to explain it. And there are works here that do that, or come perilously close to morally berating you on the evils of plastic bottles. If you want to see art about the climate crisis and environmental degradation then the Legacy exhibition at Cromer Artspace recently, was exemplary in how to do interesting, relevant art that was visually thought provoking work, without turning that into belligerent propaganda or hectoring you with facts.

Using a church space well, is always quite a challenge. Last year's was generally quite poorly displayed, this exhibition is better thought through and arranged. What gets me about some of the work here is how astoundingly dull so much of it is, because it has so little to say. Muddy or very ephemeral looking paintings, sculptures that look like an aesthetic arrangement of objects, that are not actually in a productive conversation. Geometrical forms perched on plinths, with ranting sloganeering hand written on each face panel. 

The few striking pieces were - an obelisk with brightly coloured relief panels - various small pieces of neon art hung in porches, up pillars and waving at us from an old rood loft stairway, table cloths made out of gardening centre plant labels. My favourite sculptural pieces were a selection of spherical shapes with spiky fronds or studded with screws.

Overall it was hard to say stuff stood out, because it didn't, surrounded as it was by so many half baked ideas, and the sort of work you'd do at A level, and subsequently burn from embarrassment. 

CARROT REVIEW - 3/8

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

ART N AB ART - Asteriodia - Salthouse Church Exhibtion

 

Having seen the promotional flyer for this I had my interest and expectations peeked. There are a lot of events happening alongside this installation which I can only describe as ritualistic, which seems an interesting idea. Basically there is a difficulty here for me. What the actual thing itself these events are based around. struck me as - not that impressive. Made from a huge number of dried out starfish, composed into a circular form. It hangs across the nave, but it does not dominate it, which it really should do, its size aught to overwhelm. There was a desire in me for this to be much much bigger in scale, a sphere, or even better a dome you could sit beneath and look up into, not a medallion shape. For it to be lit dramatically, to really wow me with awe and wonder.

Scale alone is not the fundamental problem. This simply feels half baked conceptually, this stars above and stars below thing, the linking of the heavens with earth, the transcendent and the terrestrially grounded. Some how this feels far too light weight and the installation required much more imaginative effort to be brought to it. To dig a bit deeper than applying some basic imaginative associations to it. My overall impression was -  of being underwhelmed, and when informed what the artistic premise of the installation was, still more underwhelmed. Remind me again, what is this supposed to say to me, because I really am not feeling this in my mythic gut?

CARROT REVIEW - 2/8

ART N AB ART - On Balance - Anglia Textile Works - Handa Gallery Wells Maltings

These much loved collective of textile artists, are one of my favourite exhibitions to visit in any year. They are so full of innovative inspiring work. Usually at Salthouse Church, this year they are relocated to the more municipal gallery space in Wells Maltings. This conventional hanging space, does bring to it a more coherent feeling for an artist's approach and working method. Also, having seen an artist's work one year, you can see by the following year where they have taken ideas only in early germination the last time you saw them. For example, Hannah Rae last year had just started covering small blocks in layers of coloured stitching. This year this technique has been applied to wall hangings and more amorphous padded shapes. 

Hannah Rae

Hannah Rae

Annette Morgan

Annette Morgan

Claire Spender

Claire Spender

Claire Spender

This type of art display favours some artists work more than others. So rectilinear artworks by Annette Morgan's panels and hangings, Niki Chandler's precise geometric abstracts and Cherry Vernon- Harcourt's dyed cloth with embroidered horizon detailing, Irena Willmott's subtle abstract grids, zing in the Handa Gallery space. Hannah Rae's sculptural forms, Clarke Spender's hand embellished found objects and natural forms and Heidi McEvoy-Swift's unfolding natural forms, shift from wall reliefs to sculpture on plinths, in a multiplicity of forms, these can feel less striking, even when they most certainly are. 

Niki Chandler

Heidi McEvoy-Swift

Heidi McEvoy-Swift

Heidi McEvoy-Swift

Cherry Vernon-Harcourt

Cherry Vernon Harcourt

All these artist's work have something that rewards closer inspection and reflection. I have once again come away with lots of my own ideas arising from the different techniques on display here, that can be added to my own bag of artistic bag of tricks to draw from. Anglia Textile Works

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

ART 'N' AB ART - Phyllida Barlow & Daisy Parris - Wolterton Hall Exhibition

Phyllida Barlow's sculptures appear to be forming a precarious and temporary balancing act. All the elements whether wood, metal, scraps of paper, plastic, slathered in plaster, dust and paint, sometimes are held together with duck tape, or rooted in a tin full of cement. They possess an improvisatory feel. That this is only one way these elements could be assembled, turn your back and they might reconfigure completely their current form and emphasis. 

In the magnificent lofty heights of a Georgian mansion, with it's grand self concept, built to impress, Barlow's sculptures feel even more like rough and uncouth rebels, coarsely protesting, refusing to submit to the language of classical proportions, its implied refinement and sense of self importance. This chaotic intervention, anarchic even, confronts us in the gallery spaces at Wolterton. Sculptures cluster together, these like minded figures in a three or four-way conversation on plinths. Some are freestanding, with an unbearable weight perched atop precariously pointy stick legs, elements stacked in layers or clustered together as dildos moulded in plaster. 

There is always a wildly pagan earthiness, from the grounded humdrum ordinariness of Barlow's material choices. These disrupt any expectations of grand statements, or monumentally elevated perspectives. The rattling argument of wood chairs in the stairwell are a case in point, they are a riot of imprecision and informality, their surfaces skimmed with plaster and paint, as though marked out for destruction, not to prettify them. Something monstrous could emerge out of this mess of disabled angles and planes crawling out from underneath this elegantly executed staircase. Other rooms are filled with Barlow's sketches, similarly they look dashed off, rough suggestions, preparatory sketches for future sculptures. These drawings are an explorations in her imagination flying free of the limitations of actual three dimensional material. Barlow's work extends whilst working within the German expressionist tradition of Joseph Beuys, Dada assemblages and Art Povera. These are not comfortable works to find an easy relationship with.

Daisy Parris confronts the exhibition space in a different manner. Her exhibition's title work Fist Full of Dreams, is a series of textile carpet panels lashed together, made to Parris's design that they have embellished further afterwards, with their rough free hand embroidery of the surface or affixing slogan bearing cloth panels to them. Words, cloth and form sit in an uneasy juxtaposition as a partnership. The lurid quality of the paint colours, and slashy handling of it resist being called beautiful or delicate. Sometimes the slogans repeat till they fragment, or even become partially absorbed into the paint surface. All the works on display here were created in response to her visiting the hall and the room where they were to be exhibited. Some of the paintings fit neatly into the wall panels, others like Fist Full of Dreams defy such an easy incorporation into the appointed space, hung across a framework of pink painted scaffolding poles of its own making.  Hanging free of convention and stereotypical interpretation.

Both these exhibitions are well worth a visit, you don't get a chance to see modern work of this range and quality in Norfolk very often. Viewing is by appointment only, you can't just rock up expecting to be allowed entrance. Details are on their website.  https://wolterton.co.uk/art-and-culture/

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

ART 'N' AB ART - Global Textiles at Blickling Hall

Karun Thakar's fabric collection must be absolutely huge. This is a man totally obsessed with design, pattern, the skills and techniques of fabric makers. And what we see here is only scratching the surface of what he holds in his personal collection. There are some truly stunning pieces of cloth just hung up in the entrance hall alone. What you find as you walk around the house, is that the Indian fabrics are where the strengths of this display are, but there are also some superb Japanese kimono, African and Russian cloth too.

It aught then to have been a feast for the eyes, to come away both awed and enriched. So why did it feel lacklustre, half arsed even? Well, it came down to the way they chose to display the fabrics. It would have been much better had they displayed all the fabrics in a tighter sequence, and not have them sparsely spread out across many rooms. This diminished the impact of them. Also, draping them informally over sofas, across floors and bookcases, treated them far far too casually. You can't really get a sense for them as full patterned lengths of cloth. They end up appearing scrunched and scruffy like someone's put their laundry out to dry. Plus they are really hard to see in most of the rooms. This is not helped by the house light levels, which for the sake of conservation I know are kept low with the blinds down. And from behind a rope a stunningly embroidered fabric hung over a bookcase, well I could tell it was floral, but not much more from yards away. 

The attempt to link the fabrics to specific individuals from Blickling Hall felt trite, and a bit of a skimpy afterthought. It was on the level of, he worked in India around this time - so what? I would have found it much more interesting for the researchers to have gone into more specific detail on how Indian textile designers adapted to the Western market. How European textile manufacturers took over the production of popular Indian cloth designs. The influence it had on European aesthetics and fashion trends. Not to mention European protectionism of their own cloth making industries. Was there asset stripping of Indian cloth designs? What were the Calico Acts etc ? I suspect it was assembled on a very low budget, hence the poor level of display, or came together hurriedly in a short space of time. I'm afraid this was a missed opportunity, and hence disappointing as an exhibition overall. 

CARROT REVIEW - 3/8