Open Country

Unlikely as it sounds Anneka Rice has long been part of a small painting group run by the extraordinary artist, Maggi Hambling. Over the years they've developed a strong bond. As Maggi puts it, the painting group is 'like family' to her. In this special episode of Open Country, Anneka travels to Suffolk to find out more about the county that has inspired Maggi's work: from her brooding seascapes, to the once controversial but now lauded Scallop on Aldeburgh beach. They start the day in a dank, dark, tree-covered ditch where Maggi hid as a teenager when she was too nervous to attend a painting class. Then to Maggi’s home, where - leaving the verdant overgrowth of her garden - they enter her studio where green (a colour she hates) disappears… there are blacks and greys and just a bit of pink. Next, onto the bleak but beautiful beach at Sizewell, it’s here in the shadow of the nuclear power plant that the churning North Sea most speaks to Maggi. And finally to the huge steel sculpture of the Scallop on Alde