Exhibitions

UPCOMING EXHIBITION

Eleanor Dorrien-Smith
Drifting Contours

Drifting Contours: A study in tidal landscape and light is my first show with Eleanor Dorrien-Smith. Better known for painting the South West and the Isles of Scilly, I managed to lure Eleanor to the East and persuade her to stay here in North Norfolk for a week's residency last August.

It was a balmy week. The light was typically muted, but the mornings were clear and fresh. We walked for miles along the coast, from Brancaster to Burnham Overy and onto Holkham; Eleanor carried on to Stiffkey and Morston, sketching, looking, absorbing the landscape. What was followed by a second visit earlier this year, then culminated in this thirty-painting series to be aptly exhibited in The Boathouse at Burnham Overy Staithe. 

Loose in feel but never distorted, Eleanor's paintings are rooted in the underlying shapes and contours of this landscape we love and know so well. Colour plays a vital role, a gentle palette of blues and greens on unfinished sandy-toned canvases. You can feel the heat of the day, the particular coastal, hazy light that she masterfully captures as it washes across her shorelines. 

A landscape in flux is hard to recreate. The creeks, marshes and sandbanks are constantly reshaped by the tides. Colours shift with the weather and light.

These paintings are unmistakably Norfolk, but equally they capture the essence of being absorbed by these ‘drifting contours.’

I’ve been trying to pinpoint why I am so drawn in by Eleanor’s style -  perhaps it is the echo of England’s green and pleasant lands meditatively portrayed by William Nicholson, or the erring towards abstraction of Paul Nash, or the contemplative nature of James McNeil Whistler recently witnessed at The Tate Britain, either way something resonates hard, but most importantly, what you are left with is a very distinctive and innovative harmony.

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CURRENT EXHIBITION

Kate Giles
Remember Tomorrow

Gainsborough's House presents new and recent paintings by acclaimed painter, Kate Giles, who has made some of the most vital depictions of landscape in recent times. The exhibition is a key part of the Spring/Summer Season at Gainsborough's House, celebrating the 250th anniversary of John Constable’s birth. Open 26th April to October 11th.

Kate Giles: “How I work is dependent on a deepening familiarity with place, a repetitive mining of it until ‘known by heart’. Close to Constable’s idea of painting as doggedly driving in a nail. Working in series, often on several pieces at the same time, allows for something different to emerge with every piece whilst fundamentally allowing the materiality of paint as something with a life of its own.’

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Past Exhibitions