Viewing Room: 02: Simon Carter and Ella Porter

This is the second viewing room we've held since our move to King's Lynn this summer. It opens the new season and gives artists, collectors and the creatively curious the opportunity to see some of the most significant artists and makers producing new work inspired by East Anglia. 

This viewing room brings together recent work by Essex-based painter Simon Carter with London-based ceramicist, Ella Porter. Simon is known for his landscapes of the marginal, waterlogged areas close to the family home right on the Essex coast. Ella has long standing family ties to the region too and has developed this new body of work for this show, using material and references from North Norfolk's coastal landscape.

OPENING TIMES  

WEDNESDAY-FRIDAY: 11am to 4pm

SATURDAY: 11am to 2pm

OR BY APPOINTMENT AT OTHER TIMES

BOOK YOUR VISIT

Simon Carter says: "I make paintings based on walking and drawing on the local Essex marshes. I have several regular routes, usually along the seawalls. I carry with me an A4 paper and a small tin of graphite sticks and crayons. I want to respond quickly to things seen, often returning to the same spot month after month, enjoying the quiet, seeing what comes to light, hoping for the unexpected"

Ella Porter is a UK based artist working across contemporary craft and fine art. Informed by a background in painting, printmaking and ceramics; Ella’s work displays a strong relationship between surface and form; exploring ideas surrounding the mark of the maker, temporality, trace and place.

"For this viewing room event at Woolmarket House, King's Lynn, I have made a  series of small objects, exploring natural and man-made weathered structures, evocative of the North Norfolk coast.

Architectural hand-built  elements are paired with softer thrown forms, with intentionally torn edges that reference the fragmentation and journey of the ceramic artefact. The surfaces I create hold the traces of my process; textures such as the imprint of shells or woven beaded structures are captured beneath a painterly glaze application. Some glazes are made using marsh mud as part of their recipe, which gives a soft grey celadon effect and others are matt and varied in colour similar to rusted metal or copper patination.

Each work is unique, some are formed of several elements which can be displayed is a variety of compositions, enabling the collector to play a part in its viewing".