Please join a screening of two artists films, to coincide with the Seven Decades of Contemporary Art and In Proximity exhibitions at Norwich Castle.  ‘I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead’ (2018, duration 21 minutes) by Beatrice Gibson will be shown with ‘The Radiator’ (2023, duration 40 minutes) by Gustavo Balbela.

The screening will be followed by an in-person conversation between Gustavo Balbela and Nick Warr, Associate Professor of Art History and Curation at the University of East Anglia and Academic Director of the East Anglian Film Archive.

‘I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead’ by Beatrice Gibson is a highly personal account of the artist’s world, set against a volatile socio-political climate and drawing on the voices of poets CA Conrad and Eileen Myles. Gibson’s film was acquired for the collection at Norwich Castle in 2020, with support from Norfolk Contemporary Art Society and national funding organisations.

‘The Radiator’ by Gustavo Balbela fuses footage of Norwich’s Victorian terrace houses with a personal narrative and the teachings of Brazilian economist Maria Conceição Tavares, to reflect on the familiar, the foreign, and experiences of empire. Balbela’s film was selected for the In Proximity Open Art Show.

Price: included in Museum admission. ncas members free.

Auditorium doors open at 2.20pm

Richard Wentworth has played a leading role in New British Sculpture since the end of the 1970s. His work, encircling the notion of objects and their use as part of our day-to-day experiences, has altered the traditional definition of sculpture as well as photography.

By transforming and manipulating industrial and/or found objects into works of art, Wentworth subverts their original function and extends our understanding of them by breaking the conventional system of classification. The sculptural arrangements play with the notion of ready-made and juxtaposition of objects that bear no relation to each other. Whereas in photography, as in the ongoing series Making Do and Getting By, Wentworth documents the everyday, paying attention to objects, occasional and involuntary geometries as well as uncanny situations that often go unnoticed.

Richard Wentworth lives and works in London. He was awarded an OBE in 2011.

No prior booking required. Tickets available at the door.

ncas members £7, non-members £10, students FREE.

The Blake Studio is fully accessible. There is also free car parking directly outside.

Wine and soft drinks available after the talk.

Confirmed as “the winter gallery show with the highest visitor numbers to date”,

THE SINGH TWINS: Botanical Tales and Seeds of Empire featured a striking new body of digital, mixed medium, work inspired by Kew’s botanical archives.

The artworks explore the deep connections between botany, empire, trade, and colonial expansion, along with the symbolism and cultural significance of plants and gardens across global traditions.

Dr Rosy Gray is Head of Living Art at the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich.

This in-conversation event will finish with an audience Q&A.

£15 (plus £1.96 booking fee) through eventbrite.co.uk

Click here to book.

The Auditorium is wheelchair accessible. Car parking available at St Andrews Car Park, Duke Street, opposite the Lecture Theatre.

Image: Courtesy of The Singh Twins

ncas members and guests are invited to visit the Being Woman exhibition at Mandell’s Gallery, open until 6.45pm on Thursday 16 April followed by a talk by five participating artists at the nearby Norwich School Blake Studio. The artists are: Andrea Hannon, Annette Rolston, Frances Martin, Gillian Allard and Rachel Collier-Wilson.

No booking required. Simply turn up. ncas members £7; non members £11

Free parking at the Norwich School.

Refreshments available after the event.

Discover what lies beneath the surface of great art – a living anatomy of tone, colour, structure, and meaning.

The Anatomy of a Painting is a captivating illustrated talk by award-winning painter and Royal College of Art lecturer Martin Kinnear. Far more than a technical talk, it reveals how artists from Rembrandt and Turner to today’s painters build enduring pictures through layers of tone, colour, and material intent. With clarity and wit, Martin shows how understanding the physical structure of paint – from pigments and mediums to light and surface – transforms the way we see, interpret, and create art. Drawing on examples from his own practice and works in major collections, he makes complex ideas accessible and engaging for all audiences.

This talk blends practical insight with art-historical depth – leaving audiences newly attuned to what truly makes paintings work.

ncas members £7, non-members £10, students FREE.

Wine and soft drinks will be available after the event. There is also free parking outside the Blake Studio.

Paula MacArthur’s Crystal paintings find fantastical moments in the real world; as objects of curiosity and wonder they invite us to stop and reflect in awe of these earthly yet ethereal fragments of our planet.

She says, ‘For me, crystals encapsulate love, life, the universe and perhaps even everything. My paintings are explorations of colour and light, and reflections of my own inner world. I find an equivalent magic in oil paint and use luminous colours to create intricate landscapes and new, unreachable worlds. They are a contemporary response to memento mori which depict highly desirable objects whilst inviting us to consider the transience of life, the emptiness of wealth and the certainty of death’.

‘The otherworldliness of these glassy, geometric forms sparks infinite imaginings on what we value. These are metaphors for the fragility of the planet we inhabit, the human condition, but also a recognition of the potential joy in the here and now’.

ncas members £7, non-members £10, students FREE.

Wine and soft drinks will be available after the event. There is also free parking outside the Blake Studio.

As part of the Art in the Close programme, Norwich Cathedral presents John Maine RA and Professor Jago Cooper, Director of the Sainsbury Centre at UEA, in conversation about art, place and spirituality; ncas members are warmly invited.

John Maine was born in Bristol and studied sculpture at the West of England College of Art, 1960-64 and the Royal College of Art, 1964-67. Influences from abroad, especially to Mexico, strongly affected his work. He was awarded the first fellowship at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. He subsequently worked in Carrara and attended the Hagi Symposium in Japan. Commissioned by the Government Art Collection, he spent a year in Australia carving a granite arch for the British High Commission, Canberra. He carved Arena in situ on the South Bank outside the National Theatre.

This practice of creating large works in landscape was developed further in Portland, Dorset, where he made the Chiswell Earthworks, as part of the Common Ground ‘New Milestones’ Project.

Free event. Booking essential.

RSVP dean.pa@cathedral.org.uk Tel: 01603 218308

Join artists Simon Carter, Alf Lohr, Barbara Nicholls, Melanie Russell, Mark Stewart and James Faure Walker for a panel discussion about their experience of collaborating on the exhibition Watercolour Now, on show now at Norwich Castle. The artists will reflect on the impact of bringing their different approaches to watercolour painting together for the exhibition, alongside their responses to the historical collections at Norwich Castle. The discussion will be chaired by Lisa Newby, Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at Norwich Castle.

Booking can be made here
This event is free for ncas members.

Götz uses colour to define the architectural qualities and the spirit of a space. He is interested in the way aspects of decoration and colour can have an impact upon us. His drawings form part of an ongoing series exploring spatial ideas.

Whilst Götz’ practice ranges in scale from site-specific wall paintings and room-sized spatial installations to paintings and drawings, there is a clear coherence and dialogue across his body of work through its continual referencing and engagement with ideas about architecture and space and its characteristic use of abstract geometric forms, fields and lines of intense colour, juxtaposed with one another.

Like Götz’ wallpaintings that respond to the actual site they are located, so do many paintings and drawings respond to writings or historical artworks, often connected to the ideas and visions of Modernism.

ncas members £7; non-members £10; students free.

Wine and soft drinks will be available after the talk. Free car park.

An opportunity for ncas members to attend a curator’s tour of a new exhibition of one of England’s greatest twentieth-century painters, Sir Stanley Spencer.

Spencer’s art was rooted in both his relationships and deep sense of place. Drawing on new research, this exhibition will explore Spencer’s personal relationships and artistic development through his visits to Suffolk in the 1920s and 1930s.

Spencer married fellow artist, Hilda Carline, in Wangford, Suffolk. The couple were joined on their honeymoon by Stanley’s brother Gilbert, who had introduced them. The previous year, Hilda, her brother–the artist Richard Carline–and Stanley had all stayed in Wangford, where their artistic practice and personal relationships developed in tandem.

This major exhibition curated in collaboration with the Stanley Spencer Gallery will focus on the artist’s work in Suffolk, where he married Hilda Carline in 1925, and returned to a decade later.

Price £20 entrance fee, £15 drink and cake on arrival, lunch after tour (optional).

Places are limited, to confirm your interest in this visit to Gainsborough’s House, please contact janeybevington0@gmail.com

Roses are red, violets are blue. But when we look at a red rose, is it really red?

There are so many reds. In different light maybe the rose looks black or purple.

Put the red next to another shade of red, it looks dull and brown

We may agree the rose is red, but, actually, we are wrong: it is not the rose that is red. It is, put simply, the light received by our eyes. But, even if we agree we are seeing red, are we actually seeing the same colour?

And if violets are blue, why are they called violets? How inadequate words are for describing colour sensation! That’s why artists use paint.

So, how do artists attempt to render the sensation of colour? In this talk, the artist Trevor Burgess explores the perplexities of colour.

No need to book, Simply turn up!
ncas members £7.00, non-members £10.00, students FREE

Wine and soft drinks will be available after the talk.

The scale of Bruce Gernand’s sculptures relate to the human body as a form that you can measure yourself against or encircle with your arms. There is a preoccupation with juxtapositions within Bruce’s work; with surface and inner shape, with organic and technological references.

Since 1998 Bruce has been involved with 3D computer modelling and much of his work expresses the relationship of the digital/virtual and its embodiment in sculpture.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Sculptors and formerly head of sculpture at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Bruce continues an academic connection through a Research Fellowship. He has been in receipt of numerous accolades from the Henry Moore Foundation, the Natural History Museum and the Cambridge Computer Lab.

A FREE event, use your own transport, please car share as parking space limited.

PLEASE NOTE: NOW SOLD OUT

Written into the founding document of the Royal Academy of Arts when it was established  by George III in 1768 is the commitment to build a collection of works of art. Since then each artist elected to be an Academician has had to donate a work. This practice continues  and the collection has grown to approximately 3000 paintings and sculptures, 35,000 works on paper, time-based media works and more.  

Join Dr Hannah Higham as she talks about the history of the collection, recent acquisitions, working with the RA Schools, and the challenges of displaying everything from Turner to Turner prize winners.  

Hannah joined the Royal Academy of Arts as Senior Curator of Collections in April 2023, having previously worked as the Senior Curator of Collections and Research for the Henry Moore Foundation. Formerly, she has worked for Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham. She holds an MA from the Courtauld Institute in German Art and Cultural Politics 1890-1945 and a PhD from the University of Birmingham. 

Richard Long’s work is about time and space. He makes his art simply by walking.

He makes both road walks and wilderness walks. Sometimes in remote places he makes sculpture along the way. His work is known through photographs and textworks. Mostly the textworks realise a new idea. He has made works on all five continents.

Since his first exhibition in 1968 he has had many exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world. He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1976 and in 1990 he was given the Premium Imperiale in the field of sculpture from Japan.

In 2018 he was knighted.

ncas members £7; non members £10; students free

No need to book. Simply turn up.

Jermaine’s recent series of photographs ‘A Storied Ground’ explores a Black presence in nature. Historically the Black figure is absent in the English landscape, which has a strong relationship to nationalism and colonialism.

Francesca discusses with Jermaine how these codes infiltrate and influence how the Black figure is seen, and how the positioning of his work in the exhibition offers a thought-provoking contrast with historical paradigms of landscape art.

‘A Storied Ground’ is part of the JMW Turner and changing visions of landscape exhibition at the Castle Museum & Art Gallery.

Free for ncas members, Norfolk Museum Pass holders and students.
No need to book. Simply turn up.

A screening of short films by artist Daniel & Clara growing from their encounters with particular landscapes, both real and imagined. Floating in a space between diary and dream, each piece is infused with the atmospheres of the place it was made: from a circle of ancient standing stones to misty Irish mountains and a rain-drenched Sussex village.

Daniel & Clara will share stories of the making of these films and speak about the themes of psychology and place, looking at how we imbue places with meaning, and how in turn landscape, weather and the environment impact our imagination and state of mind.

The screening will be followed by a conversation between the artist and Dr Nick Warr from the University of East Anglia.

This event is being presented to accompany Daniel & Clara's exhibition The Lost Estate at Norwich Castle, on display until January 2025.

www.danielandclara.com

 https://www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk/article/62075/Daniel--Clara-Places-of-the-Mind-Film-Screening

Free for ncas members and students.

Artists and educators Peter and Jon will discuss the multidisciplinary nature of animation, an artform (not a genre) that can host a range of mediums and crafts in order to explore and reflect the world we live in and dream of better futures.

Peter Martin worked as Course Leader for the BA Animation course at Norwich University of the Arts and before that as Course Leader for the BA Visual Studies Course. Peter is also a practising sculptor and has worked in theatre, film and tv production.

Jon is an award winning filmmaker and Course Leader for BA Animation and VFX courses at Norwich University of The Arts. His work spans many genres from comedy, to poetry driven films, horror, fantasy, with his latest a satirical examination of AI art tools, winning a British Animation Award, 2024.

£5 for ncas members
£8 for non members
Free for students
No need to book. Simply turn up.

In 2023, Gagosian Gallery presented their exhibition Friends and Relations: Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Michael Andrews, at their gallery in Grosvenor Hill, London. Curated by art historian Richard Calvocoressi, the exhibition Friends and Relations contextualized key works by four era-defining artists.

Taking as its inspiration a famous John Deakin photograph of the fourpainters in Soho in 1963 (along with much younger painter Timothy Behrens), the exhibition presented over forty key paintings by these four artists from the so-called ‘School of London’ and elucidates the connections between their respective practices.

Portraiture was at the heart of Freud’s, Bacon’s, Auerbach’s, and, less directly, Andrews’s practices. The exhibition’s title echoes not only the four artists’ camaraderie and interrelationships, but also the intimate relationships between artist and sitter, including artist and lover, partner, and offspring.

Richard Calvocoressi is a scholar and art historian. He has served as curator at the Tate, London, Director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, and Director of the Henry Moore Foundation. He joined the Gagosian as Director, London in 2015.

£5 for ncas members
£8 for non members
Free for students
No need to book. Simply turn up.

In this talk, glass sculptor David Reekie illustrates how his work is influenced by our reaction and adaptation to the society we live in with its tensions and temptations that pull us in different ways. These conflicts provide ideas from which David creates characters and situations and provide us, the audience. With a constant source of material for his work. There is an element of theatre in David’s work. Another important element is dark humour where he satirises and questions the way we live and the politics that control our lives.

David Reekie’s work can be found in the V&A London and Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburg.

£4 for ncas members
£8 for non members
Free for students
No need to book. Simply turn up.

A guided tour of the German Expressionists and the Third Reich exhibition, part of the Holt Festival, by curator James Glennie for ncas members and guests.

The story of Hitler’s purge on modernist culture of art, music and literature.

In addition to works by the German Expressionists, it will also include those artists that were designated Entartete (degenerate) by the Third Reich.

Among them Adler, Arp, Bissier, Bloch, Blumenfeld, Dali, Delaunay, Dix, van Dongen, Elkan, Ehrlich, Ernst, Feininger, Goldschmidt, Gotlieb, Grosz, Hartung, Henri, Klopfleisch, Kollwitz, Kupka,Lieberman, List, Lomnitz, Marc, Matisse, Meidner, Mondrian, Munch, Nolde, Picasso, Rohlfs, Rosenbaum, Roualt, Savendy and Schwitters.

The story will be illuminated by original ‘20s, ‘30s & ‘40s collages and caricatures, depicting many of the key political and other figures, by Fritz Josefovics (Joss), who himself escaped to England from Vienna in 1933.

Photos: Ben Uri Collection, Art & Antiques Appraisals

ncas to return to Hunworth Hall for its AGM in 2024 Sunday 14 July.

ncas members will have warm memories of the very hot summer’s day spent in the magnificent house and grounds of Hunworth Hall in 2022. Once again this year we are delighted to be returning to this wonderful venue, courtesy of Charlotte and Henry Crawley.

After the AGM you may like to travel the short distance to the Holt Art Festival featuring exhibitions and events which ncas members will certainly enjoy and appreciate.

Put the date in your diary - more details to follow shortly.

We have had a great response to this event and our first tour is now sold out. However ncas is delighted to present a second exclusive guided tour of the Houghton Hall’s exhibitions on 27th June led by art experts Amanda Geitner and Caroline Fisher.

Houghton Hall’s 2024 programme will see Antony Gormley and Magdalene Odundo stage major solo presentations. Antony Gormley will present Time Horizon, with 100 life-size, cast iron bodies punctuating the grounds of Houghton Hall in Norfolk. In the Hall and Contemporary Gallery, Magdalene Odundo will present her first solo exhibition in the UK since her acclaimed 2019 survey at The Hepworth Wakefield and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.

Antony Gormley: Time Horizon
Dates:  Sunday 21 April – Thursday 31 October 2024

Magdalene Odundo Exhibition
Dates:  Sunday 9 June – Sunday 29 September 2024

Time Horizon, one of Antony Gormley’s most spectacular large-scale installations, will be shown across Houghton Hall’s house and grounds this spring, the first time the work has been staged in the UK since it was installed in Catanzaro, Italy, in 2006. Featuring 100 life-size bodies, the sculptures are all installed at the same datum level to create a single horizontal plane across over 200 acres of parkland. Some sculptures will be buried and others elevated on concrete columns. This installation, which Gormley describes as a form of acupuncture, interacts with the particularity of its surroundings: trees, house, running deer, other sculptures and the changing conditions of the weather, and it invites visitors to become part of a reflexive field. Antony Gormley is one of the most important artists of his generation and is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space. His work has been exhibited throughout the UK and internationally.

One of the world’s most revered ceramic artists, Dame Magdalene Odundo, will present an exhibition of sculptures made and sited in response to the state rooms at Houghton Hall. The group of new works will be presented in the great Stone Hall, while early works have been selected to create resonant dialogues with the William Kent-designed interiors. The exhibition will also include a new commission created during Odundo’s recent residency at Wedgwood, reflecting on the history of the company, Josiah Wedgwood’s role in the abolitionist movement and the continued fight for racial equality. This will be Odundo’s first solo exhibition in the UK since her acclaimed 2019 survey The Journey of Things at The Hepworth Wakefield and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.

Places are limited to 30 and must be booked in advance. Ticket price: £35.

To book your place, contact Janey Bevington - janeybevington0@gmail.com

NCAS Tour Arrangements (pre-booked ticket only): Meet at the West Front of Hall at 10.20am for an introduction by Amanda Geitner and Caroline Fisher. We then move into the Hall for a talk on the Odundo and Gormley exhibitions (exclusive access to the State Rooms and Stone Hall between 11am -12 noon). ncas members will then be free to spend the rest of the day walking, touring the Hall, gardens and estate.