Hidden high up a stone-flagged stairwell of a gallery tucked inside the walls of Berwick-upon-Tweed, a series of vivid artworks jostle for attention. On a chilly, damp afternoon in March, a north wind grabs at branches barely blossoming. Although the skies are wide and sunlight falls between the bricks of Berwick, the world is stripped of colour. Samantha Cary’s exhibition, Unravelling, at The Granary Gallery, offers an antidote to this bleached-out bleakness, assailing visitors with glamour and style, and inviting us to experience an entirely different existence.
Unravelling is small but dense, the culmination of three years’ work marking a significant development in Cary’s artistic practice, which encompasses painting, mono prints, etchings and woodcuts. The works are flamboyant, extravagant and filled with references from music, television, film, fairytales and art history. The title of the exhibition corresponds with visitors’ attempts to unravel stories from each piece of art, and from the exhibition as a whole.
The exhibition in part explores the artist, historically imagined as a white, male painter in a garret. On the second floor of this converted granary, Cary’s work forces us to consider a more up to date version of this trope. The exhibition’s central work, ‘A Butterfly’s Dream’ (2024/25), is a huge reduction woodcut framed in such a way that the scene seems to be viewed through a window. There is a sense of gazing in on another world, or being shown a slightly illicit insight into the celebrity existence. Anna Wintour rubs shoulders with Jay-Z and Beyoncé in a room flanked by columns. Paris Hilton poses in front of Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’ clutching a miniature dog, with the night sky beyond, dotted with logos. The voracious appetite of capitalism is further depicted in a skyscraper yawning up into the sky, its apex split to create the jaws of a wolf. Beneath the floor of the room where the celebrities chat in groupings informed by the paintings of Piero della Francesca, a skeleton lies amongst micro-organisms enlarged to such a degree that they resemble insects scattered amongst the bones.
Cary told me that the skeleton, a reference to Chagall’s ‘The Poet Reclining’, was also inspired by books such as Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake and George Monbiot’s passages on soil in Regenesis. Cary used Japanese hosho paper, which absorbs ink extremely well, to create a jewel-like effect that is mesmeric.
I met Cary in front of a vast monotype, ‘The Cowboy and the Concubine’ (2022/23), and asked her about her creative practice. She told me that some of the large pieces in this exhibition had taken a year to evolve, which helped to explain the dizzying myriad of references. Her art is informed by real time experiences and encounters with other creative genres, as well as by encounters and events from her own life.
‘The Cowboy and the Concubine’ is in part inspired by a visit Cary made to the Ancient Egypt gallery at the British Museum. She has created little figures, including Anne Boleyn and Madonna, that reference Shabti Dolls, whilst also considering the jigsaw pieces that are a part of the woodcut printing process. Cary boldly explores concepts of gender, and of masculinity and femininity, with her use of cultural stereotypes. She playfully dresses cowboys in leopard-print pants and drapes long-haired women along bars. The Shabti Dolls are a nod to this too, as well as her use of bottles that subtly refer to the female form.
Cary was born in London but is based in Berwick-upon-Tweed. There is little evidence that the Northumbrian landscape has influenced her practice, in fact her work in this exhibition is mainly set in interiors or cityscapes. In an oil on linen work, ‘Baby, Baby, You have hidden depths’ (2023), two cowboys chat in a western-style saloon bar. Folklore and fairytales are woven through the piece, from Hans Christian Anderson’s tragic version of The Little Mermaid on a gown, to animals painted onto the labels of bottles.
Unravelling offers a layered and intricate experience. The main pieces are interspersed with smaller studies that allow us to consider further Cary’s process and give us an insight into the depth of her practice. The sheer volume of references creates a sense of overwhelm that echoes the saturation of modern day imagery via smartphones and on-demand television. The juxtaposition of historical and contemporary characters and personalities is ambitious in its attempts to explore strong emotions. There is humour too, in this diverse collection, though it is dark. It is a reflection on the intensity of Cary’s work that visitors to the Granary Gallery may leave with more questions than answers. Maybe that is the point.
Caro Giles is an author based in Northumberland.
Samantha Cary: Unravelling is on at Granary Gallery, Wed – Sun Until 18 May 2025.
This review is supported by The Maltings (Berwick) Trust.
Published 17.04.2025 by Lesley Guy in Reviews
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