Posts by Paul Barratt

Gatepost has news about the artists and makers C&C showcase online and in our exhibitions. To receive notification of C&C's exhibitions subscribe to the newsletter using the sign up form by clicking here.
  • Lay of The Land Opens in King's Lynn

    Why the exhibition's ceramic content breaks new ground
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Installation view: work by Kathryn Hearn, Carolyn Brookes-Davies, Caroline Chouler-Tisser, and Jack Wheeler
    Installation view: work by Kathryn Hearn, Carolyn Brookes-Davies, Caroline Chouler-Tisser, and Jack Wheeler
    One of the key components for C&C’s latest exhibition Lay of the Land and the reason so many visitors have praised the quality of the work in the exhibition is the significant contribution made by artists and makers who work in ceramics. Thanks to artists like James Evans, Kathryn Hearn, and Nessie Stonebridge the exhibition marks the degree to which applied and contemporary art practice have transgressed during the last twenty-five years, confounding conventions for the medium, and opening up new possibilities for landscape as a genre.
  • Gallery Visit: Fliss Cary and Tracee Findlater, Something Grim

    The Halesworth Gallery, Suffolk 27 July to 21 August
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Fliss Cary and Tracee Findlater installation at The Halesworth Gallery
    Fliss Cary and Tracee Findlater installation at The Halesworth Gallery
     
    We were in and around Halesworth in Suffolk this week and decided to drop in and see an exhibition at The Halesworth Gallery. Fliss Cary and Tracee Findlater have collaborated on their publication Something Grim. Fliss Cary’s black and white artwork, sits seamlessly alongside Tracee Findlater’s poetic text. The book provides the backbone for their part of what is actually a small group exhibition that includes work by Jack Crampton, and Sally Erb.
  • Gallery Visit: Jayne Ivimey and Andrew Watkinson, The Sands of Time

    A response to 200 years of coastal change 11 to 22 July 2024 at Cromer Artspace
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Jayne Ivimey and Andrew Watkinson installation 2024
    Jayne Ivimey and Andrew Watkinson installation 2024
    Paul and I dropped into the Cromer Artspace on Monday to catch the last day of The Sands of Time: A response to 200 years of coastal change. An exhibition by artist Jayne Ivimey and environmental scientist Andrew Watkinson.
  • Gallery Visit: Issam Kourbaj, Urgent Archive

    Kettle's Yard, Cambridge 2 March to 26 May 2024
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Issam Kourbaj - Urgent Archive drawing detail
    Issam Kourbaj - Urgent Archive drawing detail
    Issam Kourbaj is a Cambridge-based artist originally from Syria, taking an uncompromising look at his country, following years of conflict. The subject of the exhibition is the current social and political distress in Syria, as its population endures ongoing oppression.
  • Gallery Visit: Frank Auerbach, The Charcoal Heads

    The Courtauld Institute, London 9 Feb to 27 May
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Detail of Frank Auerbach self-portrait 1958
    Detail of Frank Auerbach self-portrait 1958
    We visited The Courtauld Institute on a recent trip to London to see The Charcoal Heads exhibition by Frank Auerbach, at Somerset House.
  • Unfurl Opens in Cambridge

    Step into Stapleford Granary Cambridge
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Liff Top Posey [Detail]. Chalk pastel, gouache, watercolour and pencil crayons by Elizabeth Merriman
    Liff Top Posey [Detail]. Chalk pastel, gouache, watercolour and pencil crayons by Elizabeth Merriman
    C&C's new exhibition is opening today! Unfurl explores botanical beauty by eight artists and makers featuring new and recent work by:
    Claire Coles, Carolyn Brookes-Davies, Helen Derbyshire, Mark Edwards, Elizabeth Merriman, Tim Plunkett, Ella Porter and Layne Rowe.
  • EASTinternational: Unpacking the Archive | East Gallery

    Discourse about an exhibition series and its legacy
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Photography: courtesy of East International Archive (far right artist Gustav Metzger and Professor Lynda Morris)
    Photography: courtesy of East International Archive (far right artist Gustav Metzger and Professor Lynda Morris)
    Paul and I attended a discussion event on Saturday 9 December, held at East Gallery, Norwich. It was a discourse about the legacy and archive of EASTinternational, a series of annual contemporary art exhibitions held throughout Norwich Art School during the summer recess. These were large, multi-generation exhibitions, that took place over nearly two decades and produced much of the documentation and art related ephemera, which has formed the basis of the current exhibition:

     

    EASTinternational: Unpacking the Archive
     

    2 December 2023 – 3 February 2024 | East Gallery

    Exhibition curated by Candice Allison with Charlie Denning

    Discourse curated by writer and critic Jonathan P. Watts

     

    EASTinternational: Unpacking the Archive is the first in a series of exhibitions and research events aimed at reflecting on the legacies, networks, and impact of the EASTinternational exhibitions. The exhibition presents the archive as a living site of knowledge production.
  • Gallery Visit: Laurence Edwards - Recumbence

    The Crypt Gallery, Norwich School, Cathedral Close
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Gallery Visit: Laurence Edwards - Recumbence
    Recumbence is a solo exhibition of sculpture by Suffolk based sculptor Laurence Edwards, centred upon his studies for a single male  figure, in bronze, laying horizontally, his head slightly raised, hanging to one side, as if examining his own predicament. Because of the subject and its context in a crypt, within the Cathedral Close of Norwich Cathedral, we read the figure as Christ, laid out flat, entombed, lifeless. A powerful subject.
  • Sean Scully: Smaller Than The Sky

    Exhibition of Sculpture and Painting at Houghton Hall, Norfolk
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Crate of Air 2018 by Sean Scully, detail view
    Crate of Air 2018 by Sean Scully, detail view
    Sean Scully's solo exhibition of sculpture and painting Smaller Than The Sky is dispersed throughout the house and grounds of Houghton Hall, from 23 Apil to 29 October. It is the latest in Houghton Hall's series of world-class exhibitions by international contemporary sculptors.
  • Gallery Visit: Lucie Rie, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

    The Adventure of Pottery: 4 March - 25 June, 2023
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Lucie Rie vase with leaf design
    Lucie Rie vase with leaf design
    We were in Cambridge last week and got to see the Lucie Rie exhibition at Kettle's Yard House and Gallery, Cambridge. The exhibition is free and if you are interested in mid-century ceramics, the assembled work is breathtaking. It opened 4 March, and runs until 25 June, 2023.
  • Gallery Visit: Amanda Edgcombe at The Cut, Halesworth

    LOOP: An Exhibition of Paintings and Prints
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Gallery Visit: Amanda Edgcombe at The Cut, Halesworth
    Amanda Edgcombe's current exhibition Loop presents new carborundum prints and gesso paintings where a closer relationship between painting and print making has been developed.
  • Sean Scully Exhibition Coming Soon

    Opens 23 Apil – 29 October, 2023
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Crate of Air, 2018. ©Sean-Scully. Courtesy the artist and YSP (Yorkshire Sculpture Park). Photo © Jonty-Wilde
    Crate of Air, 2018. ©Sean-Scully. Courtesy the artist and YSP (Yorkshire Sculpture Park). Photo © Jonty-Wilde
    It is a rare moment for art audiences in the UK as internationally acclaimed artist Sean Scully opens a solo exhibition of his sculpture and paintings, displayed throughout the house and grounds of Houghton Hall, Norfolk. Scully has exhibited internationally, during a long career. Smaller Than The Sky will be one of the visual art events of the year in East Anglia.
  • Spotlight: Liz McGowan

    Absence: Norfolk Chalk Reef
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Absence: Norfolk Chalk Reef – No. 1, Liz McGowan
    Absence: Norfolk Chalk Reef – No. 1, Liz McGowan
    Liz McGowan is an artist who works with natural and found materials, creating responses to particular environments through installation, sculpture, drawing and conversation. She exhibits her work nationally and carries out creative interventions in the environment at locations throughout Norfolk.
  • Spotlight: Victoria Fenn

    New table top sculpture for 2023
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Crown III, 2023
    Crown III, 2023
    Victoria Fenn is a sculptor exploring memories and landscape motivated by her personal connection to the Cambridgeshire Fens, where she grew up on the family farm.
  • Gallery Visit: BIG WOMEN

    Firstsite: 20+ women artists curated by Sarah Lucas
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Gallery Visit: BIG WOMEN
    It is not without irony that the exhibition BIG WOMEN, including more than twenty leading women artists, is taking place at Firstsite, Colchester in the heart of Essex, the home of the misogynistic Essex joke.
  • Spotlight: Linda Jamieson

    New paintings for Spring 2023
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    I didn’t see that coming, 2022
    I didn’t see that coming, 2022
    Linda Jamieson is a painter whose work has been closely associated with the North Norfolk coastal landscape for a while now. It is where she spends much of her time. For the last two years her work has moved away from observation and memory, toward a more imaginative use of landscape as a barometer of her own state of mind.
  • Spotlight: Tassie Russell

    Revealing architectural space in paint and print
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Spotlight: Tassie Russell
    After a career teaching in universities in the UK and Australia, Tassie Russell now works in her painting and printmaking studio on the Suffolk coast.
  • Avant Gardeners Concludes

    End of season at Houghton Hall Stables
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Avant Gardeners Concludes
    As the Dahlias tip over into each other, drawn down with the weight of their heads, and we de-install Andrew Jones's wonderful kinetic sculptures in the walled garden, we are thankful to have reached the end of the summer season at Houghton Hall Stables.
  • Spotlight: James Gladwell

    Stitching a line, and then another
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Artist James Gladwell, visiting Avant Gardeners at Houghton Hall Stables
    Artist James Gladwell, visiting Avant Gardeners at Houghton Hall Stables
    'A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought, our stitching and unstitching has been naught.'

    William Butler Yeats
  • Gallery Visit: Liz McGowan

    The spirit wraps around me: nature as a second skin, 12 June - 25 August
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Liz McGowan traversing the River Nar wearing one of her cloaks, detail of a photograph by Harry Cory Wright
    Liz McGowan traversing the River Nar wearing one of her cloaks, detail of a photograph by Harry Cory Wright
    Environmental artist Liz McGowan asks questions of us about how we may relate to our surroundings, in her current exhibition at Stapleford Granary, Cambridge.
  • Gallery Visit: Ernst Gamperl

    At Houghton Hall, Norfolk, until 25 September
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Ernst Gamperl installation in the Stone Hall Houghton Hall
    Ernst Gamperl installation in the Stone Hall Houghton Hall
    Four years ago the sculptor and master wood turner, Ernst Gamperl, took delivery of a gift from the Marquess and Marchioness of Cholmondeley. It was an oak tree, recently felled, thought to be one of the trees already present when the Houghton Hall Estate was first established three hundred years ago, in 1722 by Sir Robert Walpole.
  • Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    The Granary Gallery: It's All Happening Here
    We have put the final touches to our summer installation at The Granary Gallery this week. The seasonal refresh brings with it a selection of established artists based on the north coast to the second phase of the exhibition and several new artists we have introduced, showing with us for the first time. Alongside them are new examples of work from one or two of the artists we opened with for this ongoing project on the second floor of The Granary store.
  • River's Edge: Shoreline Finds

    Sculpture by Jack Wheeler and Beth Groom
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Installation of sculpture by Jack Wheeler, River's Edge
    Installation of sculpture by Jack Wheeler, River's Edge
    Jack Wheeler and Beth Groom are sculptors who met at Norwich Art School (NUA) while they were still undergraduates. The pair have since carved out their separate careers. Jack as a Carpenter specialising in bespoke carpentry, hand-built timber buildings and Beth as an Art Therapist working in a care facility for people with learning difficulties, Along side these activities they work together as artists on their creative projects.
  • River's Edge: Emily Mayer's Bird Sculptures

    A tribute to the life and work of Emily Mayer (November 1960 – April 2022)
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Eel Catcher (2004/7) 50.5 x 47 x 40 cm Steel, plastic, copper.
    Eel Catcher (2004/7) 50.5 x 47 x 40 cm Steel, plastic, copper.
    We had hoped to be presenting the sculptor and taxidermist Emily Mayer's beautifull bird sculptures in Suffolk, while she was in recovery from cancer. Sadly as the deadline for the exhibition approached we received the news that Emily's cancer had returned and just a few weeks later that she had died on 1st April 2022.
    We would like to thank the artist, John Locker, her husband for allowing us to show Emily's work in the exhibition and for access to her archive, to display a small selection of her beautiful bird sculptures.
  • River's Edge: Exhibition Launch

    Group exhibition at BallroomArts, Aldeburgh
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    River's Edge, Jack Wheeler's installation at BallroomArts
    River's Edge, Jack Wheeler's installation at BallroomArts
    C&C's latest pop-up exhibition at BallroomArts, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, is opening Tuesday 7 June at 10am, taking place in both gallery spaces. The Courtyard Gallery, at ground level contains a group exhibition comprising more than twenty artists who have a strong connection with the Suffolk coast and the landscape of East Anglia.The first floor ballroom houses bird sculptures by the late Emily Mayer, new sculpture by Jack Wheeler and Beth Groom.
  • New International Art Award Launched

    The Vasseur BALTIC Artists' Award
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Tim Bliss (right) Isabel's husband and Roman Vassseur (left) one of Isabel's son's at the launch event
    Tim Bliss (right) Isabel's husband and Roman Vassseur (left) one of Isabel's son's at the launch event
    This summer C&C will be fundraising for the Vasseur BALTIC Artists'Award launched last week at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, named after Isabel Vasseur (1942-2021). Isabel was a pioneering commissioner and supporter of artists from the UK and internationally. The award for international artists has sbeen created in recognition of her long association in promoting international art commissions and her connections with East Anglia the North East and her work with the BALTIC as a trustee.

  • Gallery Visit: The Art of Roller Skating by Debby Besford

    An Original Projects exhibition at PRIMEYARC, 5 March - 1 May, Market Gates, Great Yarmouth
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Gallery Visit: The Art of Roller Skating by Debby Besford
    The Art of Roller Skating is an exhibition by artist and documentary photographer Debby Besford, celebrating the artistic roller skating heritage of Great Yarmouth.
    The exhibition has been organised and hosted by Original Projects, held at PRIMEYARC, Market Gates, Great Yarmouth, from 5 March  to 1 May 2022. The exhibition also incorporates stories, artefacts and memorabilia invited from the community, to activate relationships, events and activities throughout the show.
  • Studio visit: Elizabeth Merriman

    An artist with green... amber, yellow, and cerise fingers!
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Studio visit: Elizabeth Merriman
    In December 2021, before the spectre of another Christmas lockdown raised its potential, Paul and I managed to follow through on a number of long overdue studio visits. Among these was a quick visit to the North Norfolk coast to see a capsual collection of artist Elizabeth Merriman's recent pastel drawings of garden flowers adorning the ground floor of a clifftop cottage overlooking the North Sea.
  • Studio visit: Steven Will and Annie Turner

    Ceramic open studio, Suffolk
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Studio visit: Steven Will and Annie Turner
    In preparation for our summer programme of events for 2022 we took the opportunity to visit Steven James Will and Annie Turner during their pre-Christmas open studio event in late November. While both work in ceramics and conveniently share a building, they could not be more different from one another in terms of outcome.
  • Gallery visit: 528Hz Love Frequency

    Chris Levine at Houghton Hall
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Molecule of Light by Chris Levine, 2021
    Molecule of Light by Chris Levine, 2021
    On a warm October evening we went to the first public showing of 528Hz Love Frequency a series of immersive light installations by Chris Levine at Houghton Hall.
  • Gallery visit: Welcome to My World

    New paintings by Linda Jamieson
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Linda Jamieson, Singing in the Toxic Rain 2021, 104 x 104cm
    Linda Jamieson, Singing in the Toxic Rain 2021, 104 x 104cm
    Linda Jamieson has used the last eighteen months to create a new body of work, the subject of an all too brief pop-up exhibition in London recently.
     
  • Gallery visit: A Passion for Landscape Rediscovering John Crome

    An exhibition of late 18th - early 19th century English landscapes
    Paul Barratt, Director and Curator at Contemporary and Country by Paul Barratt
    Gallery visit: A Passion for Landscape Rediscovering John Crome
    Our third visit to a gallery since the perculiarly anticlimactic easing of national lockdown was to the Castle Museum Norwich, to view the exhibition A Passion for Landscape Rediscovering John Crome curated by Giorgia Bottinelli.