emcgart-blog

[emcgart-blog]

FrogFace - Ellie Green 2014

[emcgart-blog]

Summer Nights - Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

Bubblegum Girl - Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

EP cover art idea for a friends band ‘Palladino’- Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

EP cover art idea for a friends band 'Palladino'- Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

Review type 2 - Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia

The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, designed by Norman Forster, permanently houses the Sainsbury collection containing work spanning 5000 years. The current exhibition Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia contains 277 works across the mediums from antiquity until the present day. As one of the most ambitious exhibitions ever displayed in the region, Penelope Lucas, Marketing and Communications officer for SCVA, says that the exhibition is “national quality and we feel like we can compete with any London exhibition.” It contains work loaned from over 60 private and public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery. 

Curator Ian Collins explains, “It is not a conventional art show. It’s about everything that happened in East Anglia and was put into a work of art.” Besides the unquestioningly masterful paintings of Constable and Turner, and the ancient gilt King John Cup (c.1325), modern work by Ana Maria Pacheco and the photography of Peter Henry Emerson refresh the eye.

Brazilian born Pacheco opens the exhibition with her 32ft sculpture The Longest Journey (2012). 10 chain-sawn, blow-torched, sanded, and painted figures stand in a wooden boat, found by Pacheco on Norfolk’s Broads. Taking the title for this work from D. H. Lawrence’s poem The Ship of Death the sense of loss and otherworldliness is prolific in the faces of the figures. Christopher Reid, a critic of Pacheco’s work, has argued that it “has the habit of sending out resonances well beyond their nominal literary or mythic starting point. They encourage broader interpretation and a freer imaginative involvement”.

After Faces of East Anglia in Gallery 1, Emerson’s photography of the region shed light on his time in East Anglia, where he produced albums such as Life and Landscapes on the Norfolk Broads (1886) in collaboration with Thomas F. Goodall. The platinum print, chosen for its tonal range, permanence, and durability, is exemplified masterfully in Gathering Water Lilies (1886). The mid-grey tones of the water in this photograph add a depth that vitalise not only the water but also the sense of ease and gentle lifestyle of the locals pictured.

The title of the exhibition makes a bold claim; the range and volume of pieces on display is overwhelming but allows for a great retrospective of East Anglia as a creative region. Although each piece cannot claim to be a masterpiece in itself, the diversity allows visitors to find their own.  

[emcgart-blog]

Review type 1 - Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia

There are not many regions in the country that have such a distinctive tradition of cultural richness and creativity as East Anglia. Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich brings together 277 pieces across the mediums spanning 700,000 years with links to the region. The SCVA, situated on the campus of the University of East Anglia, has put on the retrospective as a part of the celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the University. The exhibition also marks the unveiling of the refurbished galleries, designed by Norman Forster’s firm in keeping with the rest of the building.

Masterpiecesis a highly ambitious exhibition, with the gallery space filled with an almost overwhelming amount of art and artefacts. It takes a moment to realise you’re only a third of the way through the exhibition, once you’ve taken in the dozens of portraits and photographs, maps and advertising, and reach Gallery 2.

Glinting gold gilt and rich red rugs, Gallery 2 feels more a museum of artefacts than of art. The King John Cup, c.1325, is certainly a masterpiece, and one of the exhibitions most talked about acquisitions, but is more a museum piece than a gallery display. In order to get a sense of the wealth and creativity in East Anglia’s history, this part of the exhibition serves its purpose, but for those wanting the more artistic experience is it best to linger longer in the first section, or weave quickly through and onto Gallery 3 for landscapes, fashion, and portraits by the likes of Lucien Freud from masters and pupils of the Norwich Art School.

The first piece in Gallery 3 sums up the exhibition: a flint axe dated from around 700,000BC sits next to a small carving of a reclining figure by Henri Moore. Both are made from stones found on the same Norfolk beach, but one is violent, ancient, and foreign, and the other calm, modern, familiar. The depth and breadth of Masterpieces, the sheer scale of the exhibition and the boldness in attempting such a retrospective is admirable, and will leave you with a sense of human pride. Whether you are more interested in the artistic talents of Henri Moore or the craftsmanship of the ancient axe there is a story of creativity told enthusiastically in Masterpieces that requires both in order to be understood.

[emcgart-blog]

Child - Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

Dispirit - Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

Despair - Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

Pen and watercolour - Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

Movement - Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

Drawn from a photo by Donald Rodney - Ellie Green

[emcgart-blog]

Ellie Green