“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal”
Corinthians 2 4:18
Exhibiting artists: Juliette Losq, Anna Gardiner, Louise McClary, Sue Williams A”Court, Alice Oswald, Melanie Miller
Nature is a solace, a rhythm, a reminder that we are part of a cycle, it is a source of joy, curiosity, contemplation and fear. Natural catastrophes and our reactions to them are mirrored in nature but so are our own acts of war and aggression. Nature is scary, beautiful, ugly, opportunistic, tenacious and evolving as is our relationship with it.
The enduring popularity of natural history programmes attests to our fascinations, also our desire to anthropomorphise and rationalise what surrounds and ultimately, survives us. As we explore and plunder we eradicate the natural world. We fetishise and demonise as we worship; we nurture and destroy as we try to align elements to our own lives.
This exhibition presents five female painters and one poet. All of the artists would resist the label of nature or even landscape artists and yet they each present us with a unique interpretation of landscape: from the poetic and idealised to sensory understanding and to a world of urban experiences where manmade structures interact and are softened by nature before being lost to it. Some of the works appears to reflect the realisation that we are losing our intimate knowledge and experience of the natural world. Nature is neither benign nor judgmental, it is relentless; if something is neglected it will be reclaimed but once something is lost we cannot bring it back.
