Arcadia for All?

I’m really looking forward to seeing this exhibition and feel extremely privileged to be included in such a brilliant line up. Many thanks to the curators Judy Tucker, Geraint Evans and to Laura Claveria and all the team at Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery.

Arcadia for All? Rethinking Landscape Painting Now

26 April – 29 July 2023
The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds
library.leeds.ac.uk/galleries
FREE EXHIBITION

Arcadia for All? Rethinking Landscape Painting Now is a new exhibition raising pertinent questions about who has access to nature, where and how. The exhibition challenges a nostalgic, idyllic and elitist idea of landscape. It embraces and celebrates nature in all its forms, acknowledging that in the 21st century most people in the UK access nature on a regular basis through allotments, community gardens, public parks or even simply through windows and screens.

Arcadia for All? explores the fragility of our environment as a result of human activity. Some of the paintings highlight the pressures that capitalism is imposing on nature or offer alternative systems to live off the land collectively. The show also deals with issues around equity, the colonial legacies of landscape and environmental racism.

Arcadia for All? features a wonderfully broad spectrum of artworks by over thirty artists, including Hurvin Anderson, Andrew Grassie, Lubaina Himid, Matthew Krishanu, Elizabeth Magill and George Shaw. They all approach nature from many different directions, expanding the notion of landscape painting in new, unexpected and sometimes radical and playful ways. Moreover, the exhibition celebrates the vitality and variety of contemporary painting in all its materiality and visual richness.

The exhibition has been guest curated by Dr Judith Tucker, Senior Lecturer at the School of Design, University of Leeds and Geraint Evans, Pathway Leader MA Painting at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London.

Between Dog and Wolf 2, oil on canvas, 120cm x 90cm, 2018

List of participating artists:
David Ainley, Hurvin Anderson, Iain Biggs, Louise Bristow, Hannah Brown, Simon Callery, Lara Cobden, Kimathi Donkor, Sam Douglas, Natalie Dowse, Geraint Evans, Mark Fairnington, Andrew Grassie, Dan Hays, Lubaina Himid, Barbara Howey, Matthew Krishanu, Paula MacArthur, Elizabeth Magill, Cara Nahaul, Christopher Orr, Rebecca Partridge, Julian Perry, Narbi Price, Carol Rhodes, Greg Rook, George Shaw, Benet Spencer, Clare Thatcher, Judith Tucker, Phoebe Unwin, Joanna Whittle.