These eight paintings are illustrated here as they stand, hang or lie in the studio at this moment. All have been worked on in the last two months; the last one was painted this afternoon. It, the third last one, and the iceberg work are meant to be ‘real’ paintings, intended eventually to be taken seriously. Some of the others are mere doodles or studies for later use. Only one is definitely finished; some might be, but equally they might suddenly spurt into life again. Some, such as the last four, are positively unfinished and are awaiting further inspiration and time. Some might well be destroyed (‘Delighted to hear that’, says at least one disgruntled reader).

They exist on and in a range of materials across a range of sizes; but I’m not saying anything about such matters at this stage. Nor do I give titles, so they can be viewed without my intention (if there is one!) influencing the view. I show them simply as images and hope they convey some sort of message to someone.

The shock of not being able to produce anything worthwhile before I left early from what was meant to be my painting week with Michael Horn in early June has worked in the sense that I’ve painted a lot over the three months since then. That’s quantity; quality is something else so I’ll put up some works with little comment and let the viewer judge.

Actually, this is not new this year, but it is newly sold. In ink on paper, it is a small, minimalist abstract called ‘The Way’ in a conscious take on Michael Horn’s several ‘Weavers’ Way’ paintings.

The sale follows the sale of two others recently. For someone who is not particularly interested in sales and certainly does not push his products, this is alarming – but nice!

A study using spray paint on board exploring the contrary ideas of randomness and linearity/rectalinearity. The effect is largely accidental but I do like blues!

I cannot claim this next image as my painting but I found it – on a sandy beach on Lindisfarne, an image of a deceased sea-bird sea-sculpted from a piece of wood by the ceaseless sea.

A reader is not convinced by my ‘sea-bird’ claim of thise bit of drift-wood and asks if I have any more convincing photographs. Well, try these:

Maybe the one on the left is a bit more convincing – I think it very goose-oid.

I have been working away on this next painting for at least three months during which it has been modified several times, not so much in its composition as in its colours. The basic structure is collage; only the dark green oblong, the black disc and the grey background are painted directly on to the board.

Essentially the design derives from the idea of megalithic standing stones as seen at Avebury and other stone circles, and a trilithon of two uprights and a lintel as seen in the third millennium BC at Stonehenge. The green represents much-used landscape; the black disc represents the sun or moon – and my present gloom about the state of my country and the world. The whole is called ‘Black Winter Solstice’.

This is Blythburgh church, Suffolk, sited magnificently on a knoll overlooking the tidal River Blyth. I apologise for inadvertently cutting off the top of its tower. For the first time this year, the church hosted the annual ‘We love Becker’ exhibition of work inspired by Harry Becker, the early 20th century local artist of rural life (see previous years about the end of August for earlier Becker blogs). The show transferred from its previous home in the church at Wenhaston, 2 miles west, where Becker lived, a move that seemed to work. Natural light flooded the interior of Holy Trinity, making for a much more lustrous exhibition.

Mind you, strong light can expose as well as flatter and, though admiring the works of some well-known local artists, I found the exhibition overall somewhat less than distinguished.

Also disappointing, I thought, was the annual exhibition at Black Barns, Cley in west Norfolk. Again but even more so, there were some outstanding works, notably the artfully arranged assemblage by Hugh Pilkington of material collected from the sea-shore (minus plastics, so the author explained, though clearly some plastic is present):

Clearly, the fishing industry should be ashamed of its wasteful, deleterious ways. But then, art as we all know is in the eye of the beholder and personally I found this next  piece of childish scribble (by a grown-up), the very first work one saw on entering the barn, set the bar pretty low for the exhibition overall:

I accept that I may be missing the point.

As doubtless will others of my own submissions next. They make no claim to be art in their natural formation yet I thought these patterns and textures in the sand of Lindisfarne (Holy Island, Northumberland) were splendidly artistic in their tidal innocence:

I just wish I could paint with anything like their degree of delicacy.

Well, it’s not a painting but is it a sculpture? – ‘Path’ is a structure of common reed and various natural yarns by Monica Cass and Lizzie Kimbley. Here, it’s my link between ‘Exhibitions galore’ (i) and (ii). Somewhat unobtrusively, it sits outside the south door of St Margaret’s Church, Cley-next-the-Sea, Norfolk, as one of the exhibits in the annual Cley Contemporary Art exhibition. I’ve been going to this event and its predecessor at Salthouse for over a decade. I thought this, called ‘Borderlines’, one of its most successful occasions, with exhibits spread around the graveyard as well as in the Church and, a mile away, in the Norfolk Wildlife Trust Visitor Centre until 4 August.

On the outside of the chancel’s north wall are three photographs on canvas by Simon Marshall; along the northern edge of the graveyard are three panels (mixed media) entitled ‘Perspectives’ by Jake Francis, one of several items overtly with a political message in the exhibition.

One of the most dramatic sights is looking into the Church from outside the west door:

Here Alan Cossins’ ‘Armistice’ fills the porch with bamboo, waxed cotton and paper while allowing a view through to the east window of the chancel (see below). Paper triangles carry dates and names of wars and battles, with numbers of the dead e.g.

The message is clear. As is that of the startling fabric hanging between the east window and the altar cross:

The title of this installation, ‘The Essence of Everything’ by Kelly Briggs, is somehow both meaningless and apt. Below and in front of it is  ‘Erebus and Nyx’ by Rachel Kurdynowska, a book simulation in ‘Wild Norfolk clay, silk, cotton, natural dyes’, with a sound piece (not illustrable).

Among the spaciousness of the nave, carefully curated in this exhibition, one unusual item in particular caught my eye:

Chalk writing on the nave floor is a mixture, as far as I could read, of real script and scribble-scribble. It is called ‘Return’ by Kristy Campbell.

Am going to cut there – this note is long enough; but there’s more to come from this summer’s exhibitions.

I’ve seen dozens of, nay hundreds if not several thousand, works of art in recent weeks at numerous exhibitions. Let’s deal with some sculpture first.

Stanny Farm, on a bend in the R.Alde opposite Aldeburgh, Suffolk, from time to time hosts rather up-market art exhibitions for invitees with supposedly up-market pockets. The exhibitions’ setting is unambiguously striking in a classic example of what to do with a large, redundant agricultural building, in this case a very spacious barn. The two photographs give some idea of the vast space available. The sculptures, mainly re-used bits of iron and other metals mainly welded into suggestively anthropomorphic shapes, are by Andrew Sloan in an exhibition entitled ‘The Nine Muses’ (open to view by appointment).

On an even (much) grander scale is this summer’s Henry Moore exhibition, Nature and Inspiration, at Houghton Hall in north west Norfolk, open into the autumn.

Most striking, I thought, is Large Reclining Figure 1984 stretched out in all its fibreglass curvaceousness on the lawn in front of the west (rear) front of the Hall. The first view (right) is from the far end of the avenue flanking this lawn; the second view (below) is from the central, ground level doorway looking, like the sculpture, west down that avenue.

The counterpart sculpture outside the centre of the east (front) front of the Hall, also looking down an avenue, is the bronze Three Piece Sculpture: Vertebrae 1968-69. This view is back towards the house from the east, showing the tripartite nature of the sculpture. What a setting for two mighty, and mightily impressive, works; though it has to be said that the architecture stands up well to the visual challenge.

Further out in the grounds to the west, the park-scape is dotted with sculpture, some by Moore and some now resident here from earlier exhibitions, for example by Long, Turrell and Whiteread.

The Arch 1963-69 (below left) stands fibre-glass tall at the centre of a geometrical plantation (with avenues of course):

The bronze Mother and Child: Block Seat 1983-84 (above right) sits similarly at the junction of avenues in another plantation on the south of the western avenue.

Indoors are various smaller works. Personally I thought the state rooms with their rows of stately portraits looked better when hung with Damien Hirst’s dot compositions last year. The outstanding Moore-related piece tells of his inspiration rather than his accomplishment: it is the splendid elephant skull that was, to a degree, his muse:

If I’m honest, the best part of the visit was to enter once again the wonderful large walled garden, immaculate as ever and annually more coveted by this increasingly ex-gardener. As for the Moore exhibition, I was glad to find I was still impressed even though in one sense, I suppose because I have grown up and lived with the Moore genre of sculpture for more than half a century, these mighty works were strangely familiar, little lambs rather than mighty elephants.

That could not be said of the last stop in this quick gallop round some sculpture exhibitions. Look at this:

This extraordinary sculpture by Thomas Houseago is called ‘Beautiful Boy’; it is in ‘tuf-cal, hemp and iron rebar’, which perhaps someone can translate for me. Context is all; and yes, it’s the RA’s Summer Exhibition once again, announced by (the statue of) a garlanded Sir Joshua Reynolds on the main promo-poster and just below the crotch of the ‘Beautiful Boy’ in this photograph (no suggestiveness intended though I admit the angle of the photograph was not accidental).

For me, far and away the most interesting part of the Exhibition (see next blog for indoors) is the Courtyard installation, here in its own words:

For once, I agree very much with the official blurb, so need add very little. The whole Houseago assemblage in the Annenberg Courtyard is fearsome as well as fearless, and indeed in some respects a little sinister, even scary:

Look at the owl-like figure to the left and other anthropomorphic figures in the background. In the foreground, and dominating the Courtyard, is Large Walking Figure I (Leeds), a monstrous bronze which I have exploited with a low angle photograph so that the sky is background to the empty, ghoul-like eye-sockets and nasal passages. It was my conceit to angle it so that it looks as if a Union Jack is coming out of his left ear: a slight cheat may be, but there is plenty of other political undertone in this splendid show. This is my sort of sculpture, powerful and pertinent – and very lookable at. You can look at it for free until 12th August.

In utter contrast is this very ‘soft’ art-work of reeds and yarns, perhaps making a sculpture. It is called ‘Path’. Its context is in the next post: