Susan Isaac – Southwell Minster from Bishop’s Drive

I have a group of paintings in the  “Open Studios Notts Exhibition” at the gallery in Rufford Park, with its preview this Sunday 5 May (and then running 6 May to  June). I thought it appropriate that they should be relating to Nottinghamshire and am showing views of Newark and Southwell.

Southwell Minster is an unexpected gem within the landscape of the county – with its remarkably intact Anglo-Norman features and distinctive, widely visible ‘pepper-pot’ spires.

Susan Isaac – Newark Market Place

Newark-on-Trent is perhaps even less expected but has an equally rich and visible architectural history. The ruined castle, lying alongside the River Trent and noted for its role in the Civil War, still dominates the north-western approach to the town and has been the subject of many paintings by local and visiting artists (including Turner who painted it following one of his early tours of British regions in 1794 when he was 19).

It also has a beautiful spacious town square,  where brightly coloured markets are looked over by mostly Georgian buildings plus a sprinkling of Medieval timber-framing and with the fourteenth-century church tower & spire standing sentinel-like over its north side.