Scaling the Sublime: art at the limits of landscape

About

Curated by art historian Nicholas Alfrey and artist Rebecca Partridge, the exhibition explores affinities with Romanticism in contemporary art practice, and the continuing fascination of the landscape Sublime.

In the visual arts 'the Sublime' tends to be associated with the period of roughly 1750-1850 when a new emotional response to landscape first developed in the work of Romantic painters. In Western art, 'Sublime' landscapes and seascapes, especially those from the Romantic period, often represent towering mountain ranges, deep chasms, violent storms and seas, volcanic eruptions or avalanches.

In Scaling the Sublime seven leading UK and international artists are drawn to subjects such as mountains, glaciers, the icecaps, forests, the ocean, the moon and the remotest stars. The artists included have found new ways of reflecting on our relationship with the unimaginable forces of nature, even in an age of technological advance and the unprecedented expansion of knowledge.

Working across a variety of media and often drawing on expertise from other disciplines through collaboration, these artists embrace the newest processes and techniques as well as traditional methods of image making. The resulting works move through registers of wonder, melancholy, futility and absurdity.

Scaling the Sublime includes work by: Martin John Callanan, Simon Faithfull, Tim Knowles, Mariele Neudecker, Rebecca Partridge, Katie Paterson, and Richard T Walker.

Nicholas Alfrey, Co-curator of the exhibition, says:

'This exhibition brings together some truly adventurous artists. They take on some of the most daunting subjects imaginable, and the work they have produced is constantly surprising in its range and scale.'

The exhibition at the Djanogly Gallery runs from Saturday 24 March 2018 to Sunday 17 June 2018. Admission is free.

Scaling the Sublime is part of the Fringe Programme for The Grand Tour partnership, supported by Arts Council England's Cultural Destinations fund and the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership.