AFTER NATURE: curated by Ben Tufnell
Upcoming exhibition
Overview
This exhibition brings together leading and emerging artists offering a timely exploration of the ways in which artists are looking at and thinking about nature in the twenty-first century, featuring works spanning a range of media, including sculpture, ceramics, drawing, painting and photography.
Featuring internationally acclaimed artists such as Richard Long and David Nash, After Nature also highlights a new generation of rising talent including Aimee Parrott, Alastair and Fleur Mackie, Nissa Nishikawa, Fred Sorrell and Mercedes Balle. The exhibition offers a timely exploration of the ways in which artists are looking at and thinking about nature in the twenty-first century, with works spanning a range of media, including sculpture, ceramics, drawing, painting and photography.
After Nature explores ways of making art 'after' nature, i.e. in imitation of natural forms and systems (but inevitably haunted by the idea of coming after nature too). One section focuses on artists using natural processes (gravity, evaporation etc) and materials (mud, minerals etc) in their work, and a second focuses on artists working with visual perception (colour, form).
Notable pieces include a significant mud work by Richard Long, a wall painting in ash and dust by Chris Drury, new pastel colour studies by David Nash and paintings made with ochre pigment reclaimed from mine waste by Onya McCausland. Also featured are artworks that simulate the perspective of other species, specifically bees and other pollinators by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, and ceramics fired with natural material sourced from the landscape around CLOSE by Nissa Nishikawa. The exhibition will also debut new works by Magnus Hammick, Simon Hitchens, Aimee Parrott and Lotte Scott.
While ecological and ecocritical discourse is ever more insistent that there is no distinction between ‘man’ and ‘nature’ (that to be human is ‘to be ecological’ in philosopher Timothy Morton’s words), extreme weather events are increasingly commonplace and the current US administration questions the reality of climate change and has announced an intention to double down on fossil fuel extraction.
Artists have long addressed the complexities of these issues, often quietly and non-polemically, but with subtle power and insistence. By making work that addresses the ways we understand the human/nature dialectic and by interrogating the ways in which culture can represent and reflect the environment, art can perhaps offer a nuanced understanding of our present predicament.
After Nature invites audiences to consider how contemporary art can offer new ways of seeing, sensing and engaging with the natural world at a time of urgent ecological change.
Exhibiting Artists
Aimee Parrott | Alex Hartley | Chris Drury | Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg | David Nash | Alastair and Fleur Mackie | Fred Sorrell | Lotte Scott | Magnus Hammick | Mercedes Balle | Nissa Nishikawa | Onya McCausland | Richard Long | Simon Hitchens | Tania Kovats
After Nature explores ways of making art 'after' nature, i.e. in imitation of natural forms and systems (but inevitably haunted by the idea of coming after nature too). One section focuses on artists using natural processes (gravity, evaporation etc) and materials (mud, minerals etc) in their work, and a second focuses on artists working with visual perception (colour, form).
Notable pieces include a significant mud work by Richard Long, a wall painting in ash and dust by Chris Drury, new pastel colour studies by David Nash and paintings made with ochre pigment reclaimed from mine waste by Onya McCausland. Also featured are artworks that simulate the perspective of other species, specifically bees and other pollinators by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, and ceramics fired with natural material sourced from the landscape around CLOSE by Nissa Nishikawa. The exhibition will also debut new works by Magnus Hammick, Simon Hitchens, Aimee Parrott and Lotte Scott.
While ecological and ecocritical discourse is ever more insistent that there is no distinction between ‘man’ and ‘nature’ (that to be human is ‘to be ecological’ in philosopher Timothy Morton’s words), extreme weather events are increasingly commonplace and the current US administration questions the reality of climate change and has announced an intention to double down on fossil fuel extraction.
Artists have long addressed the complexities of these issues, often quietly and non-polemically, but with subtle power and insistence. By making work that addresses the ways we understand the human/nature dialectic and by interrogating the ways in which culture can represent and reflect the environment, art can perhaps offer a nuanced understanding of our present predicament.
After Nature invites audiences to consider how contemporary art can offer new ways of seeing, sensing and engaging with the natural world at a time of urgent ecological change.
Exhibiting Artists
Aimee Parrott | Alex Hartley | Chris Drury | Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg | David Nash | Alastair and Fleur Mackie | Fred Sorrell | Lotte Scott | Magnus Hammick | Mercedes Balle | Nissa Nishikawa | Onya McCausland | Richard Long | Simon Hitchens | Tania Kovats
News
Related artists
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Magnus Hammick
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Simon Hitchens
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Onya McCausland