Group 8 Art Show, Fairhurst Gallery

Eight by Eight is a six-week art show on until 20 January of eight diverse Norfolk landscape-loving artists who have inspired each other to keep working at their craft for eight years. The Private View, appropriately on the 8th of December was a busy affair, even if there were other art PVs in the city that night. Returning to visit the paintings and photos on a quieter day allowed more time and space to step back and take in some of the larger works which ranged in value from £350-£3000, a fair number, perhaps 8 or so, now marked as SOLD.

Fairhurst Gallery, Norwich

Despite being tucked away down an alleyway on Bedford St, Fairhurst Gallery has enviable clean bright space to display these artworks to their best. A regular feature of each of their exhibitions is a painted feature wall arch looking through to the paintings where the details of the artists on show are stencilled onto the wall itself. The aim of the group show was for each of the artists to show at least one new 3’x3′ square plein air art work.

About the Group Eight Artists

Formed back in autumn 2008 with the intention of getting back to the business of “doing a bit of life drawing,” Group Eight emerged as a “quintessentially Norfolk-based outfit. With shared values yet seemingly disparate styles, the group nevertheless is at its happiest rooted firmly in the landscape and the agrarian iconography that make up the swathes of broadland, breckland and fen.”

Group 8 consists of the artists: Mark Cator, James Colman, Alex Egan, Katie Falcon, Tor Falcon, Cornelia Fitzroy, Fred Ingrams, Auriol Innes.

What unites these diverse artists is their love of plein air. Fred Ingrams, son of Private Eye Richard and who once had a painting bought by Francis Bacon, used to paint above a pub in Soho but since 1998 has made Norfolk his home and the Fens his subject. James Colman once ran an art gallery in London but now runs the outdoor painting competition, Paint Out, which began life in Norfolk and this year hopes to expand further afield. Alex Egan, Katie Falcon, Cornelia Fitzroy, and Auriol Innes, have all participated in the plein air in Paint Out Norwich. Tor Falcon is the author of Peddars Way A walk with chalk, an artist’s exploration of the “unique loneliness” of an old Roman path that now goes “from nowhere to nowhere”. Mark Cator is a former photojournalist who graduated from the Norwich School of Art in 2004 and who now explores “figurative illustration and an indeterminate fiction within photography”.

The group show continues until 20 January 2016.

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Selection of Exhibited Artworks