Viewfinding considers the artist's role in shaping our perception of landscape, both physical and psychological. Drawing on Anton Ehrenzweig's notion of dedifferentiated vision, this show explores fresh approaches to landscape as a genre:
“What is common to all examples of dedifferentiation is their freedom from having to make a choice. Whilst the conscious principle enforces the selection of a form as a figure, the multi- dimensional attention of which Paul Klee speaks can embrace both figure and ground. Whilst vertical attention has to select a single melody, horizontal attention can comprise all polyphonic voices without choosing between them."
Robert Rivers presents a new sculpture made of self-twined rope made from foraged nettles: "The soil in which the nettles spread their dense networks of pink roots is rich in accumulated phosphate, necessary for the plant to grow. It was the woodland historian Oliver Rackham who first drew my attention to the soil beneath a stinging nettle. In his book Woodlands he describes how nettles live on phosphate and that humans are a ‘phosphate accumulating animal’, so when you stumble upon clumps of stinging nettles in ancient woodland it can be an indicator of past human settlements. The nettles are a green marker, a perpetuating and spring replenishing record of something no longer there, but echoing down the seasons" – Robert Rivers, Originally published in Colour and Poetry III editor Jo Volley.
Fiza Ghauri is an artist based in London. She graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art with a BA in 2022. Ghauri’s practice extracts personal and geological narratives of the relationship between anatomy and land. Branching from Pakistan’s stream of cultural discourse and the writings of Etel Adnan, Jesse Murry and Allama Iqbal, Ghauri relates her research to fictioning materiality. Her poetry was published in the VASL Arts Association book, Between Quarantine and Quest. Ghauri performed poetry for ALMANAC Poets, companions: LIVE, which celebrated marginalised voices to share personal and communal experiences. She has exhibited with LAMB Gallery in London for the group show, Geographies of Memory in 2022, as well as MATDOT Arts Centre in Bangkok for group shows POST-COVID and FRAGILE FIELDS in 2021.
Jessie Stevenson (b. 1993) is a British artist based between London and Norfolk. She graduated from Central Saint Martins with a BA in Fine Art in 2017, including an Erasmus programme at the Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna in 2015. In 2022 Jessie graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art with an MFA in painting, receiving The Bartolomeu dos Santos Graduate Award. Recent solo exhibitions include; The Circling Deeps at Sapling Gallery in London (2023); Broken Gleam at Berntson Bhattacharjee in Sweden (2022); Way Out West at Sapling Gallery in London. Recent group exhibitions include; Babele at Spazio Musa in Turin (2023); The Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon Charity Auction at Phillips in London (2023); Dreaming in Colour at Bonhams in London (2022); The Pump House at Berntson Bhattacharjee in London (2022); Stäying Alive at Berntson Bhattacharjee in Sweden (2021). Stevenson was winner of the Cass Art Prize in 2017 and was the recipient of the 2021 Col Art Residency in London. In November 2022, she completed her residency as part of The Richard Ford Award at The Prado Museum, Madrid.
Anna Higgins (b. 1991) in Melbourne, Australia and lives and works in London. Higgins completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at the Victorian College of the Arts (2013) and graduated from the Royal Academy Schools, London post-graduate program (2023). Selected solo exhibitions include Omens, ReadingRoom, Melbourne (2021), Faraway Beach, Mackintosh Lane, London (2019), The Sick Rose, David, Melbourne (2019), International Waters, Centre of Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2016) Double Negative, Substation, Melbourne (2015), Ma, 3331 Chiyoda, Tokyo (2014) Super Panavision, West Space, Melbourne (2014) and Higgs Boson, TCB art inc, Melbourne (2013). Anna was the 2021 artist in residence at the Australian Archaeological institute in Athens, and is co-director of Mackintosh Lane, London. Anna lives and works in London, UK, and is represented by ReadingRoom, Melbourne.
Robert Rivers (b. 1983) studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford, from 2002 - 2005 and later completed an MFA at the Slade School of Art, UCL, from 2011 - 2013. He was Honorary Research Fellow for the Material Research Project at the Slade from 2021-2023 during which time his research focussed on alternative materials and materials of the greenwood.
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