A Fine Balance at Houghton Hall PE31 6TY

About

A Fine Balance will be our fourth pop-up exhibition of art and handmade objects by artists and makers from East Anglia held in The Stables at Houghton Hall. The exhibition will feature recent work by more than 40 artists and makers who explore narratives that reference our landscape, the creatures that share it, natural materials and processes, and how mankind’s activities affect and influence it. The fine balance these artists seek is often a moment, or a tipping point that brings attention to an aspect of our surroundings that has been overlooked or undervalued.

The situation we now find ourselves in collectively, as the Covid-19 epidemic runs its devastating course means that our relationship with ‘the great outdoors’ has probably changed forever. The artists and makers we have included in the exhibition are ahead of the curve, creating memorable images that will chime with the public, post lockdown. During the last four months we have all had to become aware of our vulnerability to forces we mistakenly assumed we had mastered. We respond viscerally to a favourite view or landscape, much as we would if our home or family were under threat. The exhibition holds up a mirror to what we perceive, or have hidden, in the complex confluence between the sustainable and natural, the artificial and man-made.