Some staycations just work. The pacing is right, everything links together, and you leave feeling like you experienced a place rather than rushed through it.
This trip to Cornwall, curated around Abigail Reynolds’ Walking A Cappella exhibition, beautifully organised by Beth Greenacre and Abigail herself, was exactly that. A mix of great art, long seaside walks, and excellent food.
We stayed in Penzance, at the wonderfully idiosyncratic Artist Residence. It struck that perfect balance: boutique without being try-hard, eclectic without losing warmth. The walls were layered with art, objects, and curiosities, each room feeling like a lived-in studio rather than a hotel. In the morning, a proper Cornish breakfast set the tone for a full day of wandering.
One could just as easily stay in St Ives, but Penzance works particularly well for this itinerary.
From the hotel, we walked along the Penzance promenade – wide, open, with the sea constantly by your side – towards Newlyn Art Gallery.
Walking A Cappella begins here, and it’s immediately clear that this isn’t a conventional exhibition, it’s immersive and attuned to place.
The galleries have been opened up to light in a way that feels almost architectural. Sunlight pours in, animating the work rather than simply illuminating it. The standout piece, Gyre, stretches across the sea-facing window: glass made from local sand and seaweed, subtly shifting with the changing light outside. It’s both object and landscape, something you look at and through simultaneously.
Part of the exhibition includes Universal Now, a series of intricate, three-dimensional works, created by combining photographs sourced from books published in different years, all depicting the same location. Reynolds slices and layers them together into a single surface, so multiple moments in time exist at once. The dates of the original publications are included in each title, anchoring the work in its shifting timelines.
On the walk back, there’s only one acceptable detour: Jelbert’s. Open since 1945, it looks and feels like time has stopped. They serve one flavour: vanilla, and it’s perfect (I recommend the suggested flake and clotted cream on top). Eat it slowly as you walk back along the promenade with the sun on your face, just like people have done for the last 80+ years.
The second part of Reynolds’ exhibition unfolds at The Exchange in Penzance. Here, the tone shifts. If Newlyn is about light and openness, The Exchange draws you inward.
Glass masks and marbled paper works introduce the centrepiece, a three-screen film, titled A Book of Holes. It begins in Holman Quarry, where deep holes drilled into granite become unlikely instruments, each one creating its own sound. These are transformed into rhythmic, almost hypnotic electronic sequences.
From there, the film expands outward into Cornwall’s mining history, fossils, and the scars of extraction. It’s both local and global, connecting this specific landscape to wider stories of industry, exploitation, and environmental change.
The title, Walking A Cappella, was coined by Abigail during a conversation with her son. It’s about moving without a prescribed path, finding your own rhythm through landscape, memory, and history. Accompanying the exhibition is a 140-page monograph, with the same title, co-published with Anomie Publishing. This artist’s book situates these works within the broader context of Reynolds’ practice, which spans sculpture, collage, printmaking, writing, film, and live events.
In the afternoon, some of the group headed to Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens (famous for James Turrell’s Skyspace), but we chose to stay closer to Penzance, wandering slowly around the town.
Dinner at the Barbican Bistro is a must. The menu leans Spanish, but the ingredients are unmistakably Cornish: fresh sole and john dory, simply handled but precisely cooked, with asparagus, mushrooms and a butter garlic sauce. The blue cheese soufflé managed to remain light, airy, and somehow not overpowering. Of course, the standout was their sticky toffee pudding. Soaked through with toffee rather than glazed caramel it was served with ice cream and clotted cream.
The next morning, we headed to St Ives, a place that has long drawn artists for reasons that become immediately obvious. At Barbara Hepworth’s studio and garden, the relationship between artist and landscape feels almost inseparable. Her sculptures sit in dialogue with the space around them; even indoors, the sense of the outside persists. At Tate St Ives, Ben Nicholson’s work continues that conversation. Geometry and light in his works all shaped by the environment that surrounds them.
Lunch at Harbour is the perfect conclusion. Fish and chips, eaten overlooking the water, needs no reinterpretation. It’s simple and entirely satisfying.
The magic touch of this weekend was how naturally everything fit together. The exhibition is about landscape, time, and movement and the way you experience it mirrors that. You walk between locations, you see the coastline from different angles, and the art never feels separate from where you are. Interesting galleries, good food and enough flexibility to make it feel relaxed rather than scheduled – one couldn’t ask for more.
Abigail Reynolds: Walking a Capella is available to view until 2nd May 2026 at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange
