Lay of the Land: East Anglian Landscape Now

Eastern counties have frequently been summarised as flat, and waterlogged, along these lines:

‘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 artists and makers in Lay of the Land, showed 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 applied different methodologies in their work that opened-up possibilities for observation. Through their work they showed us how ideas have moved away from the 'picturesque' toward more specialist views 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 were well-regarded practitioners included in the exhibition who have developed their distinctive pathway rediscovering the genre's role for the twenty-first century. Alongside them were artists and makers who are motivated by their relationship to the land in other creative disciplines like sculpture, photography, ceramics, glass, and shell work.

Their work has frequently focussed on elements of the landscape that we value as interested observers. They have recorded how it has altered, as environmental concerns have gained in priority over more conventional yet equally vital demands like food production or the relatively opaque motives of land use management. Their interests reflect the general perception that a sense of stewardship for our environment has marked a sea-change in approach to land management.

This has often been introduced by finding more responsible models for tourism, modern farming techniques, small-scale development, self-build projects, wilding as part of estate management and greater awareness of historically important sites. In pursuing these influential roles for land use, artists and makers have engaged with the ways in which we connect with the land, and the interrelationship between landscape, its history, our collective memory, and shared experience.

The eastern landscape’s unique qualities are easier to encapsulate in list form than depict, and these alter depending upon where you are in the region. Identifiers are recognised in features like open vistaed fields, maritime marshland, willow thickets, deciduous woodland, single-track byways, fenland ditches, sticky estuary mud, chalk rivers, wooden stiles and walkways, intermittent rows of Scots pine, natural clay, sand, seashells, flint, and chalk/limestone.

Fermoy Gallery and Shakespeare Barn, St. George’s Guildhall 29 King Street, King’s Lynn. PE30 1HA

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