October | 2012 | Tidal Margins

An extract from a review by John Grant in the East Anglian Daily Times: The art of appreciating a coastline’s caress

Writing, photography, painting and sculpting combine with the allure of the sea, estuaries, marshes and reedbeds to produce an intoxicating mixture, as JOHN GRANT reports.

Suffolk’s celebrated coast is subtle rather than dramatic, no towering sea cliffs here, no rugged landscapes, but it has power – a bewitching power to engage and beguile those who come under its spell.

Naturalists have long been fascinated by the coast’s seemingly endless wildlife wonders, environmentalists have fought to protect it. And artists have drawn inspiration from it in a wealth of creative ways.

The nine talented artists in the Tidal Margins collective certainly have. Six portray their feelings about this acclaimed area of sea, beaches, estuaries, rivers, reedbeds, marshes and heathland on canvass in various ways. Two writers put down their feelings in words and one sees the coast through a camera’s lens. All have a unifying love for the area –a love that illuminates their works and a love that draws the onlooker in.

EastAnglianDailyTimesSaturday,September29,2012 http://www.eadt.co.uk

For close to a year we have, collectively and individually, walked, swam and sailed the Suffolk coast. Our footsteps have traced the shoreline in snow, rain and howling winds; with hot water bottles strapped to our bodies and flasks of tea to fuel us, we have drawn, painted and written the landscape. We have sat through balmy, sun-filled hours, watched sun and moon rise and set; seen the port lights compete with the stars; followed the paths of container ships and seals; picked up pebbles, shells, wax and corn husks from the shore. We have told stories, dropped words into the sea and dreamed of what lay beneath the waves.

For someone who has grown up and lived on the Suffolk Coast all my life and have a deep affinity with coastal Suffolk I felt the exhibition really captured something elemental about the place – something of its history and mystery

Wonderful interpretation of the wild local landscapes

Wonderfully local, beautiful and bright