Attenborough Arts Centre Presents: Arcadia for All? Rethinking Landscape Painting Now
Kimathi Donkor 'Call Me Blessed' 2016. Oil and acrylic on canvas
Attenborough Art Centre’s latest exhibition challenges expectations of landscape painting and invites visitors to ‘think outside the box’.
Curated and displayed at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery at the University of Leeds until recently, ‘Arcadia for All? Rethinking Landscape Painting Now’ examines the climate crisis, a post COVID-19 world, and a post-colonial and capitalist era while raising pertinent questions about who has access to nature, where and how.
The exhibition acknowledges that people in the UK access and experience landscape now in many different ways, such as walking in parks or on footpaths, working in community gardens and allotments, or looking longingly on our screens at faraway places we may never visit in person.
With over thirty artists participating in the exhibition, the artwork showcases a broad spectrum which approaches nature from many different directions, expanding the notion of landscape painting in new, unexpected and sometimes radical and playful ways.
Guest curator Judith Tucker said: “These are paintings which address the urgent issues of our time. They open difficult questions yet together become a visual feast. The richness of the works both conceptually and visually is astonishing and bringing them into conversation with each other opens up further debate.”
Laura Claveria, Exhibitions Curator at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, added: “At a time of serious ecological crisis when pollution and unsustainable ocean and land use are threatening both ecosystems and human existence, the exhibition feels more relevant than ever.”
Participating artists include Hurvin Anderson, Andrew Grassie, Lubaina Himid, Matthew Krishanu, Elizabeth Magill and George Shaw. The exhibition celebrates the vitality and variety of contemporary painting in all its materiality and visual richness.
‘Arcadia for All? Rethinking Landscape Painting Now’ will be exhibited in Gallery 1 at Attenborough Arts Centre from 15 September 2023 until 28 January 2024.
Join the exhibition launch Thursday 21 September, 5.00pm – 7.00pm, free for all to attend with drinks available throughout the evening. To book your place visit the Attenborough Arts Centre website.