Lay of the Land at The Fermoy and Shakespeare Barn

About

Displayed in the Fermoy Gallery and Shakespeare Barn at the beautiful Grade I listed Guildhall of St George, off King Street, King's Lynn, PE30 1HA

England’s eastern counties have historically been seen as flat, and waterlogged:
‘East Anglia is an unfixed place of give and take, a land in continual argument with water, a marine fetch of counties, yet each with deeply interior and almost Continental airs and all edged to the west by a soggy one-time swamp.’ The Beauty of East Anglia - From Country Life May 5, 2014

The artists and makers in the exhibition will show a more nuanced picture of the eastern counties than this, outside of the tourist interpretations of the Broads and coastal villages, taking in aspects of the region's lesser-known locations that have changed or entered a period of transformation. They have applied different methodologies in their work that have opened-up possibilities for observation. Through their work they show us how ideas have moved away from the 'picturesque' toward a more specialised viewpoint as landscape, as a genre, has changed in response to today’s audience expectations.

Traditionally painters have defined the parameters of the landscape genre, and there will be well-regarded practitioners included in the exhibition who have developed their own distinctive pathway rediscovering the genre’s role for the twenty-first century. Also included will be one or two examples of work by a painter who was ‘breaking new ground’ in their time by presenting landscapes painted decades ago. Alongside these examples from the past will be artists and makers who are motivated by their relationship to the land in other creative disciplines like sculpture, photography, ceramics, glass, and shell work.