Natural Encounters: Part 2

This section features a range of responses to personal experiences of landscape. From subjective, spiritual and visionary translations of nature to non-figurative interpretations of the environment. 

Through colour, texture and shape, these evoke both tangible and immaterial aspects like land, water, flowers, light and wind as well as artists’ sensations outdoors. 

Other more recent practitioners have dealt with nature to explore their own minds and bodies. 

Since the 1700s this has often been done as a reaction to ever-growing and polluted urban spaces or to the destruction and desolation brought by war.  

This section features artists who have made work in reference to Christian, Islamic and Judaic religious beliefs and artistic traditions. 

Origin stories (or cosmogonies) abound, as well as references to archetypal symbols such as the ‘Tree of Knowledge’, which appears in the Garden of Eden in both the Bible and the Torah, as well as in the Islamic Quran as the ‘Tree of Immortality.’ 

Micro and macro-cosmic forms appear — from the fractals found in the plant kingdom to the nucleus of a comet. 

The works demonstrate how aesthetic contemplation of the beauty of nature in all its forms can be a source of spiritual inspiration as well as emotional sustenance.

The artists in this section of the gallery can be viewed as ‘nature magpies’, meaning that they have a fascination with collecting observations of the natural world and incorporating this into their work. 

This section features an abundance of natural specimens, flora and fauna, captured through the observational gaze of the artist. 

Many have a deep interest in natural history, defined as the domain of inquiry into and study of organisms in their natural environment, including animals, fungi, and plants. 

Whereas drawings of specimens in natural history books tend to lean more towards the purely observational, the works on display here show evidence of an experimental artistic licence. 

Parks, gardens, fields and balconies have become places of sanctuary for some, while others have experienced the joy of exploration and seeing their local area through new eyes.

This has not been the universal experience, however, as COVID-19 has also highlighted the inadequate and unequal access to green spaces, particularly for those in inner-city or more economically-deprived areas. 

Importantly, evidence shows that access to green spaces really does matter for our physical and mental health and so this should be of concern to us all. 

The artists in this section have all turned to nature for sanctuary during times of upheaval, whether personal, social, political or cultural. 

The microscopic threat of the virus has highlighted our bodies’ porousness and the fluid boundaries between ourselves and our surroundings. 

Additionally, it has revealed the very serious repercussions when the ecological equilibrium is shaken. The artworks in this section are all landscapes - whether imagined or physically experienced.  

A number of the works play on, and sometimes subvert, the Romantic notion of escaping to find oneself, to create a bond with nature, to be enveloped in nature’s magical presence. The landscape is communicated as an experience rather than existing simply as replication or documentation.

While these works may share a dream-like, hallucinatory quality, and are often highly personal, they also make comments on wider realities — such as the human impact on climate change, or the intersections between sexuality, mental health and experiences of the countryside.