HE is more accustomed to grilling politicians, presenting television shows and broadcasting the state of the nation.

But Andrew Marr, the BBC broadcaster, has now unveiled an exhibition of his own paintings at the Venice Biennale - with some harsh words for the mammoth arts festival, and some ruminations on the state of Brexit.

Marr, who has deepened his love of painting since suffering a stroke six years ago, is presenting a dozen paintings at a show organised by the veteran Edinburgh Festival impresario Richard Demarco - the show, called Clowns and Acrobats, is full of, he says subconscious, references to Brexit.

The broadcaster, speaking at the La Scuola Grande di San Marco, said although as a BBC employee he could not say Brexit was a good or a bad thing, the turmoil it has wrought has appeared in his paintings.

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The 59-year-old Scots work is exhibited alongside part of the huge archive of Demarco, 88, who is staging a show and a series of events and talks at the Biennale.

Not that Mr Marr seemed overly enamoured with the more formal aspects of La Biennale, in which 90 countries present works by contemporary artists in shows around the canal city.

Marr said: "It's really exciting: this is not formally part of the Biennale, but to be on the edges, on the corners, on the fringe of the Biennale, is the biggest complement of my life, to be honest.

"It is entirely down to Richard, who saw my drawings and paintings quite a while ago, and liked them.

"There are two kinds of gallerists, two kinds of art entrepreneur: the kind mostly represented here, who make their way by closing doors - they say to lots of people, artists and sculptors, 'No, no I don't like you' and they slam the door on them.

"And there are a tiny number of highly promoted, very highly paid celebrity artists."

He added: "Then there is the other kind, who are basically here to open doors, and Richard is a door opener and not a door closer."

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Marr's depictions of clowns and acrobats was initially informed by a pre-occupation with the idea of falling over or tumbling.

The paintings were painted in six to eight weeks this year, in the "middle of the Brexit argument" in February and March.

"I am very interested in the business of falling over, and gravity, because I had my stroke I kept falling over, so holding my place on the floor is a very big issue for me," he said.

"So the idea of dancing acrobats was something very important to me.

"But already something unsettling happened, with my first one - I wanted an anonymous, crude clowns face at the centre, and it looks just a little bit like one of the MPs involved in Brexit, [Sir] Bernard Jenkin - just a little bit.

"I thought: that's a bit weird, but as I carried on making these paintings, it became clear to me that the clowns, and the acrobats, were becoming more and more threatening, and the paintings became darker: they were dropping things, they did not have complete control, and things were falling and smashing around them."

He added: "I didn't know what was happening and it was only half way through the series, and I have to be careful because I work for the BBC, that these are actually paintings about Brexit, and through my subconscious, the political pain we are going through was bubbling up.

"I mustn't paint against Brexit or for Brexit, I am not allowed to do that, but there is no doubt that the country has been disorientated, put off balance, and in some ways upset by what is happening."

Mr Marr said that following his stroke, although he has been able to resume broadcaster, his left arm "does not work" and his left leg is "wobbly".

He paints in a studio near his house in London.

He added: "I can't be as precise as I was in the past, I paint much rougher than I did, and I have a sense of time and mortality, because I was nearly killed by my stroke, and you are aware that you don't know how much longer you have got, and so you move fast.

"I push faster, and these are all paintings that come out of that experience.

"A week in which good painting is not being done is a wasted week for me - in fact it matters more to me that whatever is being done in a [television] studio."