Antlers, Bristol's nomadic gallery, revisits the traditional genre of landscape painting for its second pop-up exhibition: Uncanny Views.
Antlers, Bristol’s nomadic gallery, revisits the traditional genre of landscape painting for its second pop-up exhibition: Uncanny Views. Building on the success of Antlers’ previous exhibition Grotesques, the nomadic gallery has moved on to transform the former Sue Sheppard recruitment office on Park Street into its new temporary residence.
Uncanny Views will open with a preview evening on Thursday 10th February, 6 - 9pm at 2-4 Park Street. The exhibition will then remain open everyday 11-7pm until Saturday 26th February.
Uncanny Views is a group show that presents sometimes romantic, often unsettling views of land, sea and city. The artists explore familiar yet foreign scenes with suggestions of the looming, lurking and unknown.
Quintessential landscapes, urban hinterlands and unspecified seas are among the views depicted by the four Bristol based artists.
Traditional drawing practice is at the core of all of the artist’s work, however each incorporate additional techniques in their production. Processes include acetone transfer, ink splatting, photography and distressing of the original image.
Antlers’ Director, Jack Gibbon comments,
“The new show, Uncanny Views, came from seeing such challenging examples of landscapes and seascapes in studios across Bristol. Landscapes are often dismissed as just an easy way to cash-in on popular views. This exhibition shows the flip side of the genre. Real and imaginary views are depicted in works that as well as displaying their own inherent beauty and value, challenge us to readdress our relationship with the environment around us.“
Artists Exhibiting:
Anouk Mercier’s work relies on the nostalgia of Romanticism, mythology and storytelling to depict melancholic worlds, undefined by time, space or location. Combining fragments from 17th and 18th Century landscape etchings, references to vintage postcards as well as her own mark making, her work confuses the boundaries of what is ‘real’, taking on a dream-like quality.
Helen Jones bases her work on the environment around her as well as the epic imagery of natural disasters appearing in the mass media. The scale and voracity of her abstract charcoal drawings make the viewer question their own significance in comparison to the looming power of nature.
Max Naylor is interested in the in-between spaces, the hinterlands where countryside meets conurbation. His ink drawings, many of them in near darkness, have a melancholy feel evoking a sense of loss or change as wild places are squeezed by the inevitable creep and sprawl of modern civilisation.
Rupert Morley’s work evokes a sense of the unknown; time and place are left open as organic forms engulf the graphic shapes of industrial marine architecture. Using his own photographic images as a starting point, Rupert uses digital degradation, random mark making and considered illustration to create spontaneous yet controlled depictions of unspecified places.
Uncanny Views
Preview 10 February, 6 – 9pm
10 – 26 February 2011, 11am – 7pm
2-4 Park Street, BS1 5HS
