GROUP EXHIBIITON

The next viewing room, Dwelling is the Light, is curated by writer and art historian Katy Hessel, best known for creating The Great Women Artists Instagram account and podcast, which celebrate women artists with the goal of readdressing the gender imbalance in the art world.

Inspired by the evolving effects of the current global lockdown on our attitudes towards nature versus domestic living, this online exhibition presents a curated selection of works by contemporary female artists working within a range of mediums, from figurative and abstract painting to tapestry, sculpture and photography. The title of the exhibition is derived from William Wordsworth’s seminal 1798 poem Tintern Abbey, which centres on the author’s meditations on the restorative powers of nature, even in the form of memory. With its emphasis on the dichotomy between sublime nature and urban living, this landmark of British Romantic poetry serves as a point of comparison to these artists’ intimate and often surreal explorations of outdoors and indoors, interiors and exteriors, nature and domesticity.

London-based artist Antonia Showering (b. 1991) is known for her richly layered depictions of family members in landscape settings, deployed in warm, velvety washes of red, orange and green. Ambiguous yet psychologically charged, Showering’s paintings err between the abstract and the allegorical, while Prudence Flint (b. 1962) paints inscrutable images of people in pink-hued interiors that probe the nature of contemporary domesticity and the female experience. Cassi Namoda (b. 1988) explores the comfort and closeness of home in expressive paintings inspired by her own family relationships.

Vija Celmins’ (b. 1938) glittering observations of organic phenomena such as oceans and fields of stars in space remind us of the thrilling power of the natural world, while American artist Lily Stockman (b. 1982) creates meditative and strikingly simple geometric abstractions that suggest a quiet correspond- ence between landscape and body. Still others approach nature as a vehicle for colour: Fiona Rae‘s (b. 1963) ecstatic oil paintings mediate her experiences of nature through the prism of contemporary abstraction, and Hope Gangloff (b. 1974) paints dazzlingly vivid figurative landscapes in ultrasaturated tones. Hilary Pecis (b. 1979) invites the viewer into her lushly coloured, kaleidoscopic paintings, which capture both the indoor and outdoor spaces she calls home with luminous immediacy.

Redefining the meaning of sublime nature, Kiki Smith (b. 1954) produces ethereal tapestries, sculptures and drawings that encapsulate a highly developed vocabulary of animals and images twinned with a spiritual and mystical conception of the cosmos. Similarly, Sanam Khatibi (b. 1979) conjures Wat-teau-inspired paintings in verdant, sensual landscapes, taking a magical realist approach to allegorical explorations of primal instinct. Pamela Phatismo Sunstrum (b. 1980) creates drawings and video ani- mations of volcanic, subterranean and cosmological landscapes that shift between the representational and the fantastical.

British artist Lucy Williams (b. 1972) depicts deserted Modernist interiors in the form of extraordinar- ily detailed mixed-media collages, exploring themes of disconnection and unease in modern living. In a contrastingly documentary approach to twentieth-century domestic spaces, photographs by Diane Arbus (1923–1971) present isolated figures in familiar surroundings rendered strange and uncanny to the viewer.

‘United by the explorations into our environment in both exterior and interior settings, this exhibition by female artists, both past and present, reflects on the current climate through heightened notions of solace, isolation, and spirituality. Women—who for many centuries were simultaneously at home within but also confined to domestic spaces—retain a unique perspective on the interplay between interiors and the unbridled freedom of the natural world.’–Katy Hessel