Contemporary and Country's (C&C) exhibitions display contemporary art and applied art in architecturally interesting settings. More than 250,000 visitors have attended our pop-up events. We are incredibly grateful to the contributing artists and makers who have made C&C's events so enjoyable.
Past
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Lay of the Land
East Anglian Landscape Now 25 September - 26 October 2024 Lay of the Land will be an exhibition celebrating the features that make the East Anglian landscape so distinctive. It will encompass recent work by artists and makers who show us why the east of England has maintained an enduring appeal among present day creative minds, how the landscape is changing, and the way it is represented in material terms in the work they produce. Read more -
Double Take
Recent work by James Evans, Susan Gunn, and Tassie Russell 10 - 24 May 2024 The exhibition Double Take comprises work by three artists with strong bonds to Suffolk and Norfolk: sculptor, James Evans; painter, Susan Gunn; and painter, printmaker, and photographer Tassie Russell. The quality of their work draws the viewer in, encouraging us to look closer and overturn our assumptions, exploring the familiar as locations for ambiguity. The idea that there is nothing more deceptive than certainty, is not new. These three artists prove the point using their considerable skills to make accomplished works of art that vacillate between initial appearance and more covert qualities that become evident upon further inquiry. Double Take is held at The Crypt Gallery Norwich, NR1 4DD Read more -
Unfurl
Botanically Inspired Art and Decorative Objects 23 February - 28 April 2024 Unfurl is an exhibition of eight artists whose work celebrates the fecundity of flora and fauna as the winter months slip away and the burgeoning of bulbs and buds herald spring! Unfurl encompasses painting, photography, drawings on paper, collage, ceramics, textile embroidery, handblown glass and shell work by seven significant creative talents from Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. The artists and makers Claire Coles, Carolyn Brookes-Davies, Helen Derbyshire, Mark Edwards, Elizabeth Merriman, Ella Porter, and Layne Rowe will show how they embark upon their portrayal of the natural process of renewal. Each takes a different aspect of the genre of botanical art away from its traditional origin, toward more innovative outcomes in a celebration of the cyclical start to the year. Read more -
Close
Recent paintings by Rosie Phillips at The Crypt Gallery, following a residency at Norwich School 10 January - 15 February 2024 Portrait artist Rosie Phillips will be spending time in early January 2024 meeting with staff and pupils at Norwich School, as well as members of the community at Norwich Cathedral. After her initial discussions she will start to create new portrait studies for the duration of the residency. The outcomes from the residency, drawings, paintings or print works, will be presented in an exhibition together with a selection of recent work, from 10-15 February 2024, curated by Contemporary and Country. Read more
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Heads & Tails
Picturing People and Other Animals 9 September - 28 October 2023 Heads and Tails will be a group exhibition of ten artists exploring the interspecies bonds formed between people and animals and how they look at home, in the workplace or in the wild. Each has a different approach. Participating artists are: Katayoun Dowlatshahi, Roger Hardy, John Kiki, Rachael Long, Emily Mayer, Jessica Perry, Rosie Phillips, Louise Richardson, Colin Self, and Nessie Stonebridge. Some of the artists paint multiple figures in friezes, or as performers on a stage, others show how animals interact with us or how they are impacted by human activities in the ‘wild’. Media will vary, but the work encompassed includes painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, taxidermy, and clay modelling. Heads and Tails will be at The Fermoy Gallery and The Shakespeare Barn, St. George's Guildhall, 29 King Street, King's Lynn PE30 1HA Read more -
East to East
Art and Craft with an Asian Influence 23 April - 1 October 2023 East to East was an exhibition held at Houghton Hall Stables of 35+ artists and makers based in East Anglia, who shared their appreciation for the aesthetic and techniques originating in Chinese and Japanese art and craft. The work featured encompassed sculpture and handmade objects, as well as paintings on canvas, wooden panel, paper or fabric, ceramics – with expertise in Japanese and Chinese techniques like Raku, porcelain, decorative glaze and lacquer work, folded and cut paper and woodblock prints.
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Makers' Mark
Handmade for the Home 20 October - 22 December 2022 To kick off contemporary and country's winter programme we have invited a few of the makers we work with regularly to select some domestic scale work from recent production, and we have made them available for sale from October 20, to December 22, 2022. Read more -
River's Edge
C&C at Ballroom Arts, Aldeburgh, Suffolk 7 - 19 June 2022 Contemporary and Country presented River’s Edge, a group exhibition held at BallroomArts, Aldeburgh, in Suffolk. Complimenting these were new sculpture by Jack Wheeler and Beth Groom and bird sculptures by Emily Mayer. On the ground floor in the Courtyard space, was a group exhibition of artists and makers with a strong connection to East Anglia and its coastal landscape. Their work encompassed the coastal environment, creative use of natural materials in the art and handmade objects they made. Read more
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Avant Gardeners
C&C at the Stables, Houghton Hall, Norfolk 1 May - 25 September 2022 England has a reputation for the variety of its gardens and the informal balance of its designed landscapes. Art has always been a vital component of these outdoor spaces. Houghton Hall’s permanent contemporary collection continues this story. It will be the first time Contemporary and Country have configured an exhibition that directly compliments the magnificent gardens and park that make up the Houghton Hall Estate.
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The Granary Gallery
C&C at Jarrold, Norwich 1 April - 14 October 2022 C&C's Summer 2022 selection of paintings, prints, sculpture, and photography by East Anglian artists has been assembled to complement the Granary's contemporary British and European furniture, lighting and soft furnishings on the second floor of this landmark building in the centre of Norwich. Contemporary and Country’s (C&C) second exhibition of contemporary art by artists based in or close to Norwich and from across Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. Read more -
Rock Paper Scissors
Supporting - Tony Cragg at Houghton Hall, Norfolk 19 May - 26 September 2021 Contemporary and Country (C&C)’s exhibition encompassed art and handmade objects fashioned with the process of their making in mind. Rock, Paper, Scissors included artists and makers who like to surprise us with the outcome of their creative intent, choice of material and dexterity of fabrication.
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Spring Salon 2021
Living with art and the handmade 27 April - 1 June 2021 A walk-through film clip of our salon was taken at this beautifully converted single storey barn annex between Holt and Fakenham in North Norfolk. This unusually contemporary space was designed by Norwich-based Architect Charles Emberson and completed a couple of years ago as independent accommodation for expanding family needs, serving as a family space for grown up teenagers, as well as a state-of-the art garage/workshop for the owners' classic car collection. It won the NAA Design & Craftsmanship Award Winner (2019)
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A Fine Balance 2020
Supporting - Anish Kapoor at Houghton Hall, Norfolk 12 July - 1 November 2020 The situation we now find ourselves in collectively, as the Covid-19 epidemic runs its devastating course means that our relationship with ‘the great outdoors’ has probably changed forever. The artists and makers we have included in the exhibition are ahead of the curve, creating memorable images that will chime with the public, post lockdown. During the last four months we have all had to become aware of our vulnerability to forces we mistakenly assumed we had mastered. We respond viscerally to a favourite view or landscape, much as we would if our home or family were under threat. The exhibition holds up a mirror to what we perceive, or have hidden, in the complex confluence between the sustainable and natural, the artificial and man-made.
Some of the artists and makers have chosen to look at a highly maintained version of the countryside and our place within it. Others employ sustainable materials to create pleasing pieces intended to be handled and used every day. Others look into the natural phenomena and practical activities that are frequently personal to us in terms of our physical impact on the planet whether through recycling and re-assigning waste to new purposes. While others explore areas that are not quite urban or rural, but like much of modern Britain, somewhere in-between.
The exhibition is open from Sunday 1 July to 1 November, to coincide with the same opening times as the Anish Kapoor sculpture exhibition held throughout the gardens and park at Houghton Hall. Check the Houghton Hall website to see opening times and to book tickets for entry onto the estate. https://www.houghtonhall.com/book-tickets/ Read more -
Festival 2019
Supporting - Henry Moore at Houghton Hall, Norfolk 1 May - 29 September 2019 FESTIVAL celebrated and responded to the work of sculptor Henry Moore, an icon of the 20th century, who along with his contemporaries was a key contributor to the Festival of Britain in 1951. This embodied the sense of optimism of a country that looked forward to the second half of... Read more -
Ordinary Worlds: Landscape Imagined and Real, 2018
Six women artists at Creake Abbey North Norfolk 10 - 23 August 2018 Ordinary Worlds showed a selection of new and recent paintings and works on paper by six Norfolk artists. An exhibition of six women artists who share a common interest in representing landscape and interpreting the topographic in their work – each artist shows how we might compose landscape to suit... Read more -
Houghton Hall 2018
Supporting - Damien Hirst at Houghton Hall, Norfolk 25 March - 31 July 2018 This pop-up shop showcased the work of 40 of Norfolk and the easstern region’s finest artists, designer-makers and craftspeople. It ran alongside a major exhibition by Damien Hirst entitled Colour Space. This exhibition included a number of the artist’s most celebrated sculptures which were installed throughout the 18th-century house and... Read more
