Entwined: Plants in Contemporary Painting is now open at Huddersfield Art Gallery, West Yorkshire. The exhibition is curated by artist-curators Judith Tucker and Barbara Howey with Grant Scanlan (Curator at Huddersfield Art Gallery) and is supported by Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.
Dr Nathan Smith, Mycologist at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and Historian writes: “Entwined brings together a number of artists inspired by nature, plants, and botanical forms. Their reasons are varied but a common theme is a focus on the local and, by way of its subject matter, the ephemeral. Their work, as varied as the botanical kingdom it represents, situates itself in gardens, parks and countryside walks. Theirs are small moments captured and writ large in order to communicate something every day and yet fantastical. John Constable found nature to be the source from whence all originality must spring. Seth Lister Mosley found nature and religion to be closely related, perhaps even one and the same, and frequently sought spiritual communion with nature. There is much to be found in nature if we can only see it with fresh eyes. The pieces that constitute Entwined provide such an opportunity.”
Emily Hazell, Botanical Horticulturalist observed the following in relation to the painting Moonbright by Amanda Ansell:
“When I look at this piece, I am transported both to my daily work and to a more innocent way of being: My primary experience of plants, a wash of green, a wall of lushness, nothing picked out, nothing disturbing, apart from the flash of a flower or animal. For some reason, over the years, I have incessantly peeled back successive layers of plant blindness, looking closer and closer, being drawn down into the tunnel until now: I am in the viridescent Temperate House. I fight back the awe of Cyathea fronds rising up over bamboo and rhododendrons, trying to pick my way through every leaf, petiole and stem to spot subtle signs of the first stage of wilt, or worse, sogginess. I am no longer in a place of welcoming foliage but in a relentless vortex of checking and checking each Pantone of green, so that everyone else can walk in and start their journey into the wonderous world of plants.”
Read essays from the Entwined catalogue here.
The exhibition is open until Saturday 28th January 2023
Opening Hours: Wednesday – Saturday 11am – 4pm
Address: Huddersfield Art Gallery: Unit 7, The Piazza Shopping Centre, Princess Alexandra Walk, Huddersfield, HD1 2RS
Gallery website