Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery: Alfresco, Karen McEndoo and Katherine Nicholls

This exhibition ends 28th June 2026.

I was ever so glad I made it to this exhibition before it closed as it was so lovely.  I often go to exhibitions that make me think or inspire me but ones that just make me smile and delight me are rarer.  This was one of those.  I could very happily populate my house with these pictures.

The two artists, Karen McEndoo and Katharine Nicholls both independently worked on the theme, to look at the delights, and dramas, of eating outdoors.  The stories both artists told worked really well together and it was such a coherent exhibition, that comprehensively covered the subject with such charm and humour.

Full of charm, warmth and humour, every painting told a story.  While the two artists had quite different approaches, their paintings worked incredibly well together.  The room was full of colour.  I imagine many children must have enjoyed this exhibition too as the subjects were so accessible and relatable.

I think my favourite painting was Apple Harvest by Katherine.  Two apple trees and a child reaches for an apple and there is a dog as well.  It is a riot of colour and texture but it has a warmth and softness to it, it is beautifully rendered.  It's the subject though, as I grew up in a house with apple and pear trees.  We had dogs who especially loved the pears and they would wait under the pear trees, in case one fell.  There were never any windfall pears to collect.  I used to go out and pick pears for them.  I was not supposed to, the good pears were supposed to stay on the tree to be picked and stored for us.

It is not surprising, but herring gulls featured in paintings by both artists and I adored them all!  I have a huge fondness for gulls.  They are misrepresented and badly treated.  Our changing habits have reduced their numbers and now they are endangered.  People do not realise this though and they are often victims.  Only recently an unpleasant tourist punched and ultimately killed a sea gull in St Ives as it had stolen his food.  I think many in Cornwall have a huge fondness for them though, there was a huge outcry on social media.

There was Karen McEndoo's Squabbling Gulls and Stalking Gull and Katharine Nicholl's Lunch Companion.  No other animal featured as strongly in the food dramas of this exhibition.  I think though, it's not surprising, anyone eating outdoors in Cornwall will have had their food eyed up by a gull or two.

Of course there were plenty of picnics too!  Not all of the picnics were going smoothly...  A fox was attacking one and dogs another.  Other animals included horses, chickens, a mouse and perhaps most surprisingly, an elephant.  Gulls were not the only birds as pigeons, sparrows and a crow also featured.

Karen McEndoo is better known for her abstract paintings but her initial training was as an illustrator.  In this exhibition you can clearly see both influences.  I actually prefer these works to her more typical abstracts.  Her skill as an abstract painter is without doubt, but there is a little less humour in an abstract painting.  All that experience though, meant that everything was beautifully coloured and textured.  There was a richness to every painting, despite the simple seeming compositions.

Katharine Nicholls is a figurative and landscape painter that also produces backgrounds for animations.  She initially trained as a textile designer and loves to find patterns in the perspectives she gives.  I especially enjoyed some of the colour choices in some of her paintings.  Lost with Ice Creams and The Elephant out of the Room had a softness with a pastel look that made them feel dreamy.

Thank you for the smiles!