Paintings

En route to delivering a new sculpture into a collector based in Northumberland in late November, Paul and I stopped off for a few days north of the border in Edinburgh to visit friends and to catch some of the exhibitions in the city's national museums.

Rarely do we get to Great Yarmouth these days. For Paul and me this weekend's visit was a timely reminder that the artists and art organisations who have been established in Yarmouth for many years, are among the most informed and powerful advocates for the town and that the art scene is among the most socially engaged in East Anglia.

As we begin the last four days of Lay of The Land exhibition it is a good moment to look at the artists and makers who have captured the attention of visitors to the exhibition through their work on paper, embroidery, as well as paint on canvas or board.

The artists are: Tessa Newcomb, Paul P. Smith, Mike Dodd, Helen Derbyshire, Will Cutts, and Nessie Stonebridge. All of whom use tried and tested techniques in their chosen medium to produce their work, and yet they each achieve unconventional results.

Double Take opened on Friday 10 May and we have already welcomed over 400 visitors to view work by James Evans, Susan Gunn and Tassie Russell.

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.

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.

Our next exhibition Avant Gardeners will be in the Stables at Houghton Hall, from 1 May until 25 September 2022. It will celebrate the horticultural and cultivated landscape behind and beyond the garden wall.

Great Yarmouth artists John Kiki, Katarzyna Coleman, Brüer Tidman and sculptor Bridget Heritz have featured in several exibitions by Contemporary and Country during the last couple of years. This year we will include several paintings of tropical landscapes by painter Peter Rudolfo for the first time.

Many of the artists we are showcasing online at the moment have long held concerns about climate change and the environment. All four of the artists in this post record the beauty and fragility of the natural world. View works by Kate Giles, Liz McGowan, Pandora Mond and Paul Wolterink.

We opened our new exhibition in the stables to the public, Sunday 30 April. Houghton Hall opens between 11am to 5pm every Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays,