Newlyn Society of Artists at Tremenheere until April 19th. 2026

 The Newlyn Art Society has its April show at Tremenheere- selected by film critic Mark Kermode, ‘Eye of the Lens’. No theme was set. Open daily 10.30 t0 4.30 with free admission until April 19th

 

I arrived frazzled by tense driving on narrow roads but on leaving after an hour examining the probably 100 exhibits by almost as many artists I somehow felt more equal to the road challenges and coped with getting lost with equanimity so maybe the art had left me somehow slightly braver.

It’s quite hard work taking in such variety although the artists’ statements can help where works baffle. I would have liked cvs or brief biographies also and a photo of the artist.

 

One of the people who use video gets a whole room for their evocative installation using toys and objects from their childhood - Mike Thorpe. Two vases, one with tulips standing up and the other with them collapsed as they decay seemed a metaphor for our brief lives à la Ballad of Omar Khayyam- ‘the flower that blooms today tomorrow dies’  - preceded in the poem by ‘one thing is certain and the rest is lies’. The artist’s mother had died when they made this. The sounds of a child’s xylophone add to the solemn sadness and permeate the rest of the show.

Janet McKeown gets her own video screen to show badgers and rabbits on a night recording video with a soundtrack on headphones of busy human chatter contrasting with nature’s quiet woodland activity.

 

The other, silent, video contributions are unfortunately put together on a loop, at least with the times given and with seating but it seems likely most visitors won’t last  out to see them especially as some move at a glacial pace.. The drawn animation by Karen Lorens stands out as it’s fast paced and amusing.

A photo of Ken Turner by Patrick Shanahan also impresses in its precise recording of the artist, now a phenomenon himself as he is aged 99, and Ken has a powerful anguished painting of sorrow upstairs ‘weeping world’.

 

What an odd building the gallery is with no internal staircase so you have to walk up the slope and round to see the upper floor.

I found Phil Booth’s 3d work ‘Lion Hunt - Golden Horse’ baffling but so well made.

The small figures contrasting Stone Age with Tin Can age confronting one another were clearer - but then the title corrects my interpretation as it’s called ‘Bal Maidens and the Tinnie Boys’ by Julia Giles.

 

I liked the way Sally Tripptree had assembled small painted elements into a whole by stitching.

 

‘New year morning ‘by Stuart Ross was wonderfully clear but impossible to photograph without my reflection in the glass. It shows the moon in a clear blue sky.

Many of the NSA artists I am not aware of exhibiting anywhere else, which is where cvs could help, but it makes me think how studded Cornwall and possibly most of the world is with artists, addicted to making art which rarely sells but piles up, often unseen even. 

Later that evening there was art on tv from cave walls in France made 33,000 years ago. No one really knows why those artists made theirs. Their drawings were just as good, as vivid and somehow necessary as what we do now.