Sean Henry's Couple at Newbiggin

Newbiggin-by-the-Sea is a small town with a good sandy beach on the Northumberland coast, some miles north-east of Newcastle, and directly east of Morpeth. Built in the shelter of a headland, it was once an important port, then devoted itself to fishing. Then it became surrounded by coal mining and other industries. The industry didn't stop Newbiggin functioning as a popular beach resort, although catering mainly for locals: even now it lacks national recognition as a nice spot for a seaside holiday. But that's a pity. Over the last couple of decades, the whole area has been tidied up and greened, and the coast has recovered something of its original attractiveness. I wouldn't say that Newbiggin-by-the-Sea is marvellous, and you must go there. But I would say it's as nice as any regenerated place you can name, anywhere in the country. I'd go so far as to say that it has a touch of St Ives in Cornwall.  

To put the town on the Geordie Map Of Sunny Places To Go This Weekend, and keep it there, the local council have been at pains to create an eminently walkable promenade, and have made the most of the town's heritage features. There is also an important (and ambitious) artistic installation. I discovered all this when I decided to visit Newbiggin, which until a few weeks ago was still terra incognita so far as I was concerned.

Thus it was that on the last day of May I pointed Fiona at the Northumberland coast and arrived in Newbiggin in very pleasant sunshine. A few shots first of the town and its seafront, but not yet revealing what that important artistic installation was.

As you can see, a pleasant place, though dozens of similar seaside towns can show comparable scenes. In Sussex, my mind leaps towards Bognor Regis, Littlehampton and Seaford, to name just three spots on the coast with echoes of Newbiggin. But none of those towns has this. It's a permanent installation by Sean Henry, a sculptor who makes very realistic figures, generally life-sized but often larger, of ordinary-looking people caught in mid-stride, mid-expression, or mid-thought. They are always painted, with subtle skin tones. These figures sometimes seem surprised, or troubled, as if suddenly confronted by a looming crisis in their lives that they did not expect. For sundry examples of Sean Henry's works, see https://www.seanhenry.com/sculpture/.

I'd come across his figures before. I found three of them outside Salisbury Cathedral in September 2011, in a seasonal exhibition. There was the Walking Woman, which he created in 2008: 

What a confident stride she had. So purposeful. And yet she wasn't smiling. Perhaps she had made her mind up that she would face some challenge, had dressed for the encounter, and was striding forth in a determined manner. But she wasn't exactly looking forward to whatever lay at the end of her walk. And  beneath those black action-clothes, was she was trembling with fear?

On another side of the Cathedral was this, entitled Folly (The Other Self), created from 2007 to 2011, so that it had only just been completed when I saw it. 

The installation here consisted of two figures, one in bed, and one standing, apparently the same man. The man in the bed was turned towards the empty space beside him, and as you can see some female members of the public were keen to fill that space for the sake of a photograph - and surely Mr Henry intended a measure of audience-participation? At any rate, all the attention was on the man in the bed, leaving the other figure isolated and largely ignored. But I think that was also intentional. Judging by his expression and posture, I believe the standing man was experiencing an unexpected moment of crisis, as if a profoundly disturbing thought or realisation had just struck him, making him reel; and he needed space and solitude to work through it. What was behind that realisation? The half-empty bed was suggesting a strained relationship, perhaps one already lost. Although surely that was much too obvious! I feel sure that Mr Henry had a more complex situation in mind.

I was very impressed with this installation, and the photographer in me especially enjoyed the barred shadows that the girder framework made.

Then in May 2013, when at Glyndebourne for a Schubert piano recital, I came across another sleeping man, or at least a man lying down - a work called Catalfalque, which Mr Henry completed in 2011. A catalfalque is a raised wooden platform to display the body or coffin of a dead person when lying in state. So perhaps this was a dead man? And yet, he didn't look dead; his eyes were open; perhaps he was just pondering some difficult problem very deeply.   

Quite clearly Mr Henry really likes modelling crumpled clothing and unshaven faces!

And so to Newbiggin-by-the-Sea in 2021. Having parked in the centre of town, I'd walked through to the promenade, and turned left towards the lifeboat station and ultimately the headland. And this came into view on the landward side of the promenade. Two life-sized figures - a man and a woman - on a plinth, apparently gazing out to sea at something there. 

Highly intrigued, I went closer and circled the work.

There was a man-made reef out there, with a structure on it. Some locals on a nearby seat saw my interest, and told me that the figures were looking at identical versions of themselves out on that reef. Aha! That would explain the man's surprised posture and expression. I mean, wouldn't you be taken aback if you suddenly saw your double, your doppelganger? 

Both figures were of course worthy of close scrutiny, to fathom their precise reactions. By now I'd linked them with the figures seen at Salisbury and Glyndebourne some years ago, although I couldn't immediately recall the name of the sculptor. 

They were very lifelike! Once again, the great attention to folds and creases in the clothing. In fact I think the man had given the sculptor more satisfaction to create, simply because the modelling of his clothes involved more difficulties. The same with his arms and hands, his neck, his stubbly face, and his heavier, rather bovine features under that smooth black leather cap.

This was getting closer than the sculptor intended, but I couldn't help admiring how well a 'real' person had been created. I read him as frank, no-nonsense, matter-of-fact North-Eastern man, with a working-class outlook that included the automatic assumption that he was rightly the dominant partner, and his opinion was the one that mattered. I could imagine him making a remark shortly about what they were seeing, a remark which the woman would have to accept without comment, whatever she actually thought. 

Let's now turn to her. She was, after all, the figure I personally identified with.

The more I gazed at her face, the more I wondered what kind of couple this was. They were, at least, an item. But were they married, or at any rate living together? If so, if the woman had cast her lot with that man, was she now considering where they presently stood - the sight of them both out to sea jolting her into facing facts? Whereas he is looking directly at their doubles out in the bay, she seems to be looking inwards, and I think not with great joy. Something isn't right with their relationship. It's nothing disastrous, at least not yet, but you can almost hear her thinking 'Is that us? Is that what we look like? Is this all there is for us? Are we still in love, as we once were? Am I truly happy?' 

I could have been reading too much into their expressions. What had the sculptor intended me to think? And yet the doppelgangers they were looking at were on a reef - a metaphor, then, for a shipwrecked marriage?

Nearby was an official board that explained who had made these figures, how, and what the work was called. 

It was - of course - Sean Henry again. It was Couple, completed in 2007. And the full size of the figures out in the bay, on that reef, became clear. They were enormous. I later found this picture of Mr Henry next to the half-painted 'reef' versions. They seem almost identical to the smaller versions on the promenade. I don't know enough about materials to say how the 'reef' figures might hold together, given the extra bulk and weight, and the extra exposure to strong winds. Surely you couldn't simply 'scale up' and not need to add structural strengthening in some way?

I walked on, out to the headland where the church was, and back again. But now with an eye for the 'reef' version of the Couple. They seemed so far away, so small. It was hard to appreciate how big they really were. A strange sight, if you were in a passing fishing boat and saw them close up, facing out to sea. Especially on a rough winter's day, given their summer clothes. 

The woman's plight - if she was in a relationship she didn't like any more - stayed on my mind. And it still worries me. Suppose that man was a drinker, and given to violence? Was she trapped? 'Couple' does not always mean 'Happy Couple'.