Land, Sea, Air brings together a group of emerging artists whose work engages with ecology and the natural landscape. The selected artists are all interested in capturing the essence of our natural world, focusing on one (or any combination) of land, sea, and air. The title’s military connotations chime with the history of the Palmer Gallery building (which was once used as a factory in which parts for the Spitfire, Hurricanes and Lancaster Bombers were built during the Second World War), and alludes to the tensions between the natural and non-natural that is present in each of the artists’ work. Land, Sea, Air celebrates the natural abundance of our planet and examines the relationship between these fragile ecological systems and human life. Humanity is inextricably linked with the natural world, enmeshed in a complex system it falsely appears to have transcended. As our weather systems grow more erratic, and our climates more inhospitable, young artists of today are perhaps more aware of this brittle balance than any previous generation.
The exhibition includes work by Carolina Aguirre, Kavitha Balasingham, Max Boyla, Shaan Bevan, Connie Harrison, Sean Savage Ferrari, Action Pyramid and Grace Woodcock.
"Working across a variety of media, the artists in Land, Sea, Air engage in these transformational crossing-points in different ways, with several artists using materials to draw out tensions between the natural and the industrial. The exhibition is an expression of transformation and porosity, of the slipperiness of the human animal in relation to its web of attendant ecologies, and of the power of that web to heal."
[Excerpt from 'Meeting Points Within This Elemental Mesh', an essay by Anna Souter]
