Radical Landscapes (2022)

Exhibition dates: Thursday 6 Oct - Sunday 18 Dec 2022

Traditional landscape painting is associated with idyllic rural scenes, which can express an artist's appreciation of nature and have helped form perceptions of the national identity. 

Ancient symbols embedded in the land, such as Stonehenge, are often imbued with mysterious or sacred meanings, becoming a mirror for individual and communal identities. 

The pictorial conventions of landscape art can also express the status of land ownership, themes of exclusion, or control over nature. Outside of painting, artists have turned to techniques including film, performance and installation art, showing how art can be made in and of the land, rather than by viewing it as a constructed ‘scape’.

Featuring over 100 works by leading modern and contemporary artists including Hurvin Anderson, Tacita Dean, Jeremy Deller, Derek Jarman, Peter Kennard, Henry Moore and Turner Prize 2022 nominated artists Ingrid Pollard and Veronica Ryan.

Radical Landscapes interrogated the relationship between land, history, and identity. It explored themes of trespass, using art to explore the thresholds between public and private land, showing how these relate to our sense of identity and belonging. 

The enclosing of rural land and its perceived misuse has triggered protests throughout history, linking to broader arguments around civil freedoms alongside the long shadow of colonialism.

Against the context of the global climate emergency, nature is increasingly seen as something to protect and preserve, and many artists have produced work in parallel to the development of the modern environmental movement. 

All of this has provided fertile ground for artists and activists. Radical Landscapes presented the rural as a site of artistic inspiration and a heartland for ideas of freedom, mysticism, experimentation and rebellion.