OUR CLOUDED HILLS

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Rossi & Rossi Art14 London Stand H9 28 February — 2 March 2014 Venue Address : Olympia Grand Olympia Way Hammersmith Road Kensington London, W14 8UX Our Clouded Hills, is taken from an untitled poem by the 18th century visionary artist William Blake which appeared in the preface to his epic, Milton, a Poem. It begins, ‘And did those feet in ancient time', and is best known as the words to the stirring anthem ‘Jerusalem' with music by Sir Hubert Parry, regarded by many as the unofficial English national anthem. For Blake, England was a promised land awaiting a divine saviour, whose pastoral landscape was being obscured and turned into a satanic hell by pollution from the early industrialization in which Britain led the world. But far from being a lament to a lost bucolic idyll, the poem is also a rallying cry to change: ‘I will not cease from Mental Fight, nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant Land' The works produced by the three contemporary Tibetan artists in this show present a similar view of Tibet, its mountainous landscape and its people: affected by changes in climate, clouded by pollution or even set ablaze. Today, Tibet's landscape and culture are being concealed and encroached upon by a multitude of factors. Aside from the rapid industrialization and globalization of the territory, Tibet is also now subject to an escalating military presence, harsh censorship and increasing control over the movements of its residents. In the face of these changes, within recent years, Tibet has also witnessed a sharp increase in self-immolations: according to the International Campaign for Tibet, there have been some 124 cases within the past three years with the total rising as the protests continue. It is to this crisis and these changes that Tibetan artists respond.