Nightjars – Darren Barker MBE at the South Quay Gallery, Great Yarmouth

Darren Barker MBE is a British artist and the managing director of the Great Yarmouth Preservation Trust.

Deeply influenced by the German expressionists and, in particular, Max Beckmann, Barker has a similar set of recurring motifs culled both from his imagination and from his own past, such as the ubiquitous mackerel and pike from childhood fishing trips with his father. These are ambitious, disturbing and vivid canvases, and bring the whole exhibition to life.

Barker was deeply involved in rejuvenating this 17th century listed building Skippings Gallery in Great Yarmouth, a venue he also exhibited in.

Barker and fellow Great Yarmouth artist John Kiki staged a major dual exhibition at the National Gallery of Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2019.

Nightjars continues at the South Quay Gallery, 26 South Quay, Great Yarmouth, NR30 2RG until 21 June, 2026

Open Wednesday to Sunday, 10.00 am – 18.00 pm. Parking is free to visitors, adjacent to the Gallery.

Held Together - an ncas artist members' show: open call

ncas is delighted to announce Held Together – a Members’ group exhibition of 70 small works to celebrate ncas’ 70th anniversary. 

The exhibition will take place from 29 September to 11 October 2026 at Anteros Arts Foundation, Fye Bridge Street, Norwich. 

ncas members are invited to submit works, on a subject of their choosing, measuring no more than 30cm x 30cm x 30cm.

For more information and to apply, click here  

Deadline for submissions is midnight on Wednesday 1 July 2026. 

A talk by Richard Wentworth, sculptor and photographer

It was a treat and a privilege to share time with Richard Wentworth on 21 May. A sculptor and photographer who delights in the constant encounter between ourselves and the world, and between objects themselves, he extended a similar warm attention to us, his ncas audience assuming an informed and genial complicity between his world view and ours. He relied on us to follow the allusive twists and turns of a talk full of sprightly anecdotes and references (unlike the graceless President Trump, Wentworth knows how to 'weave' his delivery!).

Confronted with the external world, a mainly urban one for Wentworth - as for most of us – the creative act is primarily the dual acts, successively, of discovery and assembly. His inveterate curiosity about the things in his surroundings typically leads him to identify the commonplace, the mundane, the mass-produced, the overlooked and the prosaic; the poetry comes from the putting together he does – or maybe finds - among the chosen elements. The materials of Wentworth's sculptures are mostly ready-made objects like utensils, buckets, packaging, bricks, toys, boardgames, utilitarian chairs and tables.... It's what he does with them: upending, wrapping, cutting up, disfiguring, discolouring, marrying up …. that reveals their metaphorical potential, and prompts our surprise and joyful recognition.

Among so much that was charming about Wentworth's presence and performance were his lightly worn erudition, sly humour, left-field politics (if politics is understood in the broadest sense). Likewise was his regular referring back to the mind and cognitive responses of the child to the world as touchstones for acuity and authenticity. Related to childhood and particularly engaging with Wentworth is his appetite for casual chat. He acknowledged that this could lead him into scrapes, like a few days previously in a local supermarket when he had made uncalled for comments to a young Romanian mother about her baby eating a toy giraffe in its pram!

Since the seventies, Wentworth has taught generations of students in some of the country's most prestigious art schools. Apparently they like to say that, after talking to him and getting to know his work, 'it's like a film of dirt being removed from one's eyes' and that one 'begins to see the world as a Wentworth’, meaning that one suddenly has a heightened awareness of the position of objects in one’s environment, and a refreshed curiosity in how they came to be there and how we might interpret them. That's certainly how it felt to us the other evening. It's surely time now to count Richard Wentworth among our National Treasures along with Hockney and Blake!

Review by Robert Short

The Artist Prize: now open for entries

The Artist Prize is a new £30,000 open art prize awarded to a single UK-based artist, alongside a solo exhibition at Firstsite, Colchester in 2028. It is open to any artist in the UK, working in any medium.

Twenty shortlisted artists will exhibit together at Firstsite from 30 January to 16 May 2027. A further 200 longlisted artists will be selected by a national network of around 80 curators drawn from arts organisations across the UK, bringing distributed curatorial expertise to bear on what UK artists are making right now.

The prize is co-founded by Guy Armitage (Zealous) and Sally Shaw MBE (Firstsite, Museum of the Year 2021).

Deadline for submissions, 8 July (midday).

Click here for more information

Norwich Cathedral’s Benedictine heritage explored in new outdoor exhibition

Norwich Cathedral’s beginnings as a Benedictine monastery continue to inspire life at the Cathedral in the 21st century, and a new open-air art exhibition the Benedictine Art Project, explores the Cathedral’s Benedictine heritage past and present through a series of specially commissioned installations.

Three artists have teamed up with three local charities to create the artworks which reflect the Benedictine themes of healing and wholeness, hospitality and contemplative learning.

A large abstract recreation of the Church of St Ethelbert draped in the cloak of St Martin can be found in Almary Green, close to the Ethelbert Gate entrance to the Cathedral Close. Entitled the Cloak of St Martin, the work is a collaboration between artist Hardy Gru and local homelessness charity St Martins.

Outside the Hostry, visitors will see two old doors transformed into a tabletop covered with plates featuring recipes from around the world. The Hospitality of Abraham was the idea of artist Deborah Tompsett who has worked with English+, a Norwich-based charity helping those who are starting new lives in the city.

Completing the trio of works is The Light Comes from All Sides, an installation in the Cloister which has been created by artist Lily Bunney and Diocese of Norwich schools. Here ancient book cupboards, once used by the Benedictine monks, have been decorated with stained glass inspired by the Cloister and the medieval roof bosses which adorn the ancient architecture.

The Benedictine Art Project in the Cathedral Close is free and Norwich Cathedral’s Benedictine heritage explored in new outdoor exhbition. runs until Autumn 2026. It has been designed to complement Living by the Rule an exhibition taking place at the Sainsbury Centre which reflects on the enduring influence of St Benedict.

All photos courtesy of Bill Smith, Norwich Cathedral.

Olivia Bax: Step into Wind Eyes, East Gallery, Norwich

Olivia Bax’s Step into Wind Eyes turns sculpture into something physical, immersive and slightly unpredictable.

Rather than presenting objects simply to be looked at from a distance, Bax creates large-scale installations that invite visitors to move around them, peer through openings and become aware of their own bodies in relation to the work.

Using found materials such as mesh, chicken wire, paper pulp and reclaimed objects, she builds colourful structures that seem to sit somewhere between playground equipment, makeshift barricades and unfinished buildings. The sculptures often look fragile and improvised at first glance, yet they are carefully constructed and precisely balanced.

The exhibition’s title comes from the Old Norse phrase meaning “window” — literally “wind eye”. This idea runs throughout the exhibition, where gaps, openings and shifting viewpoints encourage visitors to keep looking from different angles. Bax is interested in how people physically experience sculpture: not only how it looks, but how it changes as you walk around it, look through it or encounter it from close range. The works create a sense of movement and instability, as though they could still be growing, collapsing or rearranging themselves.

One of the most striking aspects of the exhibition is the contrast between weight and playfulness. Materials usually associated with industry or temporary barriers are transformed through vivid colour, texture and unexpected shapes into something energetic and inviting. Bright colours soften the industrial feel of the wire and mesh, giving the sculptures a lively, almost cartoon-like presence. Some forms appear awkward or precarious, while others suggest climbing frames, baskets of toys or theatrical sets, creating a tension between seriousness and fun.

Although the sculptures can seem chaotic, there is a strong sense of rhythm and control in the way Bax arranges lines, curves and spaces. The viewer is constantly encouraged to navigate around the works, discovering new perspectives and relationships between solid surfaces and empty space. This interaction between body, movement and structure makes the exhibition feel active rather than static.

Step into Wind Eyes is a tactile and engaging exhibition that highlights Bax’s distinctive approach to contemporary sculpture. By combining rough everyday materials with bold colour and playful spatial design, she creates works that challenge traditional ideas about what sculpture can be and how audiences can experience it.

Step into Wind Eyes continues until Saturday 27 June 2026 at East Gallery, Cavendish House, St Andrews Street, Norwich, NR2 4AE. 

Opening times are Tuesday to Friday, 12 noon to 5pm, and Saturday, 12 noon to 4pm. Entry is free.

THE SINGH TWINS: Botanical Tales and Seeds of Empire

Yesterday we were delighted to welcome The Singh Twins to Norwich.

In conversation with Dr Rosy Gray, Head of Living Art at the Sainsbury Centre, The Singh Twins offered a fascinating insight into the research and creative processes behind their recent exhibition, Botanical Tales and Seeds of Empire. Set against the backdrop of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the discussion explored how botanical history, colonial trade, and cultural memory intersect within the artists’ richly layered visual practice.

The conversation revealed the depth of research undertaken by The Singh Twins into botanical collections connected to India, particularly those shaped during the period of the British Empire. Drawing upon archives, historical illustrations, plant specimens, and colonial records preserved at Kew, the artists examined how plants were not only objects of beauty and scientific study, but also instruments of commerce, power, migration, and empire-building.

Through works that combine traditional Indian miniature painting techniques with contemporary narratives, the exhibition reinterprets these histories from a postcolonial perspective. Plants such as tea, indigo, cotton, and spices became symbols within wider stories of extraction, displacement, resilience, and cultural exchange. The discussion highlighted how botanical collecting was deeply entwined with systems of imperial control, while also acknowledging the enduring knowledge and stewardship of Indian communities whose contributions have often been overlooked in official histories.

Dr Rosy Gray guided a thoughtful conversation around the role of art in uncovering hidden narratives within museum and botanical collections. Together, they reflected on how Botanical Tales and Seeds of Empire transforms archival research into visually intricate works that encourage audiences to reconsider familiar histories through themes of ecology, identity, trade, and empire.

The event offered the audience not only an introduction to the recent exhibition, but also a deeper understanding of how contemporary artists can engage critically and creatively with historical collections to reveal stories that remain urgently relevant today.

With thanks to our hosts, Norwich University of the Arts.

Messums Creative: opportunity for artists' studio space in Lowestoft

Messums Creative is exploring opportunities to provide rentable studio workspaces for visual artists in the Lowestoft area. Their aim is to support artistic talent across disciplines by offering studio spaces that inspire and help facilitate the creation of exceptional work.

Messums Creative is currently reviewing options for eight studios and invite expressions of interest from professional artists working in painting, sculpture, print, and other visual arts disciplines in order to assess requirement and interest.

For further details click here

Trevor Burgess: Wraps and Stacks: South Quay Gallery

There are three great reasons for making a trip to Great Yarmouth before the 24th May. First, Great Yarmouth just seems to be getting culturally more interesting year on year, so a visit to the town is worthwhile anyhow. Second there is a brand-new gallery, an event which needs to be celebrated, and third is that gallery's spectacular inaugural exhibition of work by Trevor Burgess.

The South Quay Gallery is a brave and wonderful new venture by photographer Pete Huggins and his wife Moira, who have moved into their five-bay, three-story, Georgian riverside building that had previous incarnations as the Nelson Museum and as the Yare Gallery (https://southquaygallery.com). The couple have now created a home, a huge exhibition space, a small café and spaces for art classes and workshops. A soft opening with a display of their own vast and impressive art collection went well, but now comes a major show by an artist who won Best International Artist in last year’s VAA Artist of the Year competition – a major coup for Yarmouth.

Despite these international links, Trevor Burgess has local history. In Norwich, he was Assistant Curator at the Norwich Gallery at what is now Norwich University of the Arts, and he also founded the artist-run Warehouse Artists Studios between 1990 and 1997. In Hackney, 18 years ago, he started work on a large series of figurative canvases depicting street markets in London which then proliferated to include busy open markets across Europe, South America and India, all full of people, produce and pigment. Colour predominated and the sense of individual, independent vendors doing their thing, and the idea that we were revisiting the 'painting of modern life', are testament to Burgess's deep pleasure in the art of looking and our shared visual history. They followed in a solid tradition of street photography and townscape painting.

African and Caribbean food (London) oil on board 100 × 120 cm

And then, around 2016, came the intriguing awareness that after markets close, outdoor or in, stuff, whether it is the crates or the food, must all be tidied away, secured, ready to  remerge the following day. And some stalls simply close. And these stacked objects, or the tarpaulin covered stalls, create a very different subject matter. The subject, now unpeopled and sculptural, is hard to define – is it still life, is it landscape, is it animate, a dormant animal? They are certainly different beasts than the open markets, filled with  people and life, but they are no less colourful. We usually associate landscape painting with aspects of national or cultural identity, with history, but these canvases resist such resonances because they are international and universal still lives, imbued with a strange sense of familiarity, obscure, hidden and protective. These paintings acquired added resonance for Burgess when the pandemic started. Markets and trading were curtailed, and the general emptiness of life and social interaction enabled an additional powerful reading of his imagery. 

Wrapped Stack, San Juan oil on canvas 122 × 210 cm

The major works here are very large, painted uncomfortably while flat on the ground, and  together they form a magnificent series of colour-coded works imbued, and I can't believe I am saying this, with a deep spiritual quality of stillness, of reassurance, of continuity. The single dominant colour of each of the large works is arresting, and in the ample space of the gallery form a vivid spectrum around the walls. Light blue, followed by the dark green of Wrap-up (Mula, Spain), then a renaissance ultramarine followed by a  strident yellow, and then the flat, solid red of Frutos Secos Valencia.  

Wrap-up (Bengalaru) oil on canvas 139 × 280 cm

The challenge in these large images is the decision on the painting's boundary, on how  much context is shown. Just enough to give a sense of location and space, but not so  much that the essential object, the 'found work' is diminished. Burgess manages this tightrope with finesse, and although he has talked about the 'emptiness at the centre of  the canvas', I am not sure I agree with him. These canvases with their simultaneously  enigmatic yet everyday motifs, I find life-affirming, colourful, joyful and reassuring,  humanist creations. 

Wrap-up (Mula, Spain) oil on canvas 160 × 200 cm

Review by Keith Roberts.

Wraps and Stacks continues until 24 May 2026 at the South Quay Gallery in Great Yarmouth. Entry is free.

The Anatomy of Painting: a talk by artist Martin Kinnear

“I make painting. Painting makes me”. True to his Northern roots, artist Martin Kinnear’s no-nonsense assertion was the perfect introduction to his wide-ranging and honest talk about his personal relationship with art, touching on learning, self-discovery and acceptance. The highly appreciative ncas audience was immediately hooked.

“Painting is an agreement between the artist and viewer”

— Martin Kinnear

Kinnear candidly admits he never intended to be a painter. Brought up on council estate in Burnley, Lancashire in the early 70s, he moved to London and trained as an advertising copywriter, eventually working with agencies such as M&C Saatchi. During breaks at work, he’d visit the National Gallery which was close to his workplace.

At the gallery, he was particularly fascinated by Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire, depicting the ship’s final voyage tugged to the breaker’s yard. To Kinnear, Turner’s idealised treatment of the subject was a perfect lesson in story-telling as, by then, the ship was a decaying hulk - not the ghostly, masted vessel depicted. It dawned on him that painting was not just “craft” to be mastered. It could be “theatre”. He says The Fighting Temeraire “gave me permission to paint; to tell my truth”.

Armed with the knowledge that young children could be trained how to paint (check out Cennini’s 15th C Il Libro dell’Arte - The Craftsman’s Hand Book), Kinnear embarked on teaching himself. However, rather than following the conventional route of taking art classes, he doggedly studied back issues of the National Gallery’s Technical Bulletins, so learning the process and techniques of renaissance, baroque and early modern oil painting, which he eventually mastered.

“The places we make, come over time to make us”

— Martin Kinnear

Kinnear’s artistic style takes inspiration from a variety of periods dating back to the Renaissance. He says all his work is concerned with place and value. Colour comes after. He insists “Paint a picture about never of”. He maintains “every picture is a self-portrait”.

He takes huge inspiration from the north of England - the place which made him - its industrial past and the post-industrial present. His show Beyond Here, 2018 was a dialogue between memory and reality reflecting on the landscape of his childhood through the lens of half a lifetime away. In the same year, his painting Burnsall Winter won him the prestigious Medaille d’Argent for peinture at the Societie Nationale des Beaux Arts Paris Salon.

Following the election of Boris Johnson as PM in 2019 and the inception of the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda, Kinnear pointedly sent Johnson visuals of his bleak and often angry works of post-industrial Lancashire to remind him of the task in hand. Somewhat unexpectedly his work, Bins, Backstreet Burnley, was duly selected for the Government Art Collection and hung in Downing Street.

Post pandemic in 2022, Kinnear’s major public gallery solo show Regeneration, once again depicting his beloved Northern landscape and urban scenes was about beauty, hope and the power of contemplation. The following year, Elegy for the Dales showed how places we make, come over time to make us.

“If you know how it ends, don’t start it”

— Martin Kinnear

Throughout his professional career, Kinnear’s practice has developed through an ongoing engagement with painting as both a physical and intellectual activity. His practice is grounded in the belief that painting is not simply a means of presenting an image, but a material process through which thought becomes visible.

The surface is approached as a site of negotiation between intention and the resistant, often unpredictable behaviour of paint itself, where meaning emerges through revision, persistence, and sustained looking. What matters is not only what is depicted, but how the image comes into being, how structure is discovered, tested, and reconfigured through the act of painting itself.

“See. Never look ”

— Martin Kinnear

It’s fascinating to reflect that Kinnear chose to teach himself painting solely through reading and experimentation, a very iterative process. He still prefers to work from written notes rather than sketches and photographs, although is now increasingly incorporating digital sketching and visualisation as part of his imagining process.

Words are of key importance to his practice. His lyrical and often enigmatic work titles such as Beneath It All, Desire of Oblivion Runs from his 2025 RCA Graduate show or Tell Yourself You Tasted as Many As You Could from The Painted Garden series well demonstrate this. He often uses poetry or even random words as a starting point for his work. He says “I realised the best pictures were in my head rather than the ones I could see”.

“A slower form of looking ”

— Martin Kinnear

A self-confessed life-long learner, teaching is also hugely important to Kinnear. He guest lectures on the MA Painting Program at the Royal College of Art and mentors painters at all stages of their development.

Recently, Kinnear completed his Masters at the RCA in 2025 where his degree Show with its monumental triptych of abstracted figural images explored self-perception, imperfection and change. He is currently the 2026-29 Kossoff Scholar at the Courtauld Institute of Art.

In an interview with Living North magazine Kinnear said “I’ve come to understand that the best paintings don’t tell you what to think, they ask what you think”.

Essentially, his work asks what painting can still do: how materially intelligent surfaces might hold duration, register attention, and invite a slower form of looking.

In an age of instant soundbites, spin doctors and influencers, Kinnear invites us to slow down. To be curious. To see, never just look. We do well to accept this challenge.

ncas would like to thank Martin for his superb presentation and Norwich School for their excellent hosting of the event.

For more information on Martin Kinnear, click www.martinkinnear.com

@kinnearmartin