Visualising Natural Systems and Our Understanding of Them
- Submitting institution
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University College London
: B - UoA32B The Slade School of Fine Art
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory : B - UoA32B The Slade School of Fine Art
- Output identifier
- 15509
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- The Rodd Gallery, Sidney Nolan Studio and Trust, Presteigne, UK; Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, US; Van Gogh House London UK
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- -
- Year of first exhibition
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The output consists of 24 artworks (19 paintings and five ceramic and bronze artefacts) investigating human relationships to nature through representations of plants, bark and foliage. The output develops alternatives to the conventions of landscape and still life genres that aim at capturing and domesticating nature. A representation of nature as forceful agent is pursued through paintings that present intense, all over compositions of leaves and stalks, and of wild passages of land. These compositions appear cropped, alluding to photography (which is the means by which Bright collects images for her paintings). The output’s close-ups of nature place a viewer in close proximity to entangled plants and hedge rows. The paintings depict different states and places, including paintings of devastation and environmental damage, and the tangle of detritus left after waters have receded following a flood. These images point to the precarity of natural ecologies. They are complemented by paintings of plants growing along highways and ‘rogue plants’ that may not be native to a landscape but grow freely in unmanaged estates. Bright’s paintings thereby register changes of climate that might visit a land and the fortunes of plant species, whether influenced by human action or natural events, as well as producing images of nature’s formidable economies of growth and invasion of territories. The bronze and ceramic artefacts, presented as part of the output, offer a different perspective on nature, pointing to domestic use and human reliance on natural materials in everyday life. The output draws on research of relevant historical examples, such as Van Gogh’s painting of tree roots, blossom and irises, in order to eschew artistic conventions when depicting nature, placing Bright amongst a group of contemporary artists contributing new perspectives and imaginary images through which to understand natural systems.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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