The exhibition will run from the 14th February until the 2nd June 2024.
The Dulwich Picture Gallery have announced an exhibition that will explore new interpretations of landscape art will be displayed next year to highlight the work of some of the most essential voices working in contemporary art.
Soulscapes will expand and redefine the genre of landscape art and will feature more than 30 contemporary works, spanning from painting, photography, film, tapestry and collage from leading artists including Hurvin Anderson, Phoebe Boswell, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Kimathi Donkor, Isaac Julien, Marcia Michael, Mónica de Miranda and Alberta Whittle.
This newly announced display will explore our connection with the world around us through the eyes of artists from the African Diaspora. It will consider the power of landscape art and reflect on themes of belonging, memory, joy and transformation.
It will begin by examining the theme of belonging in relation to the natural world and consider the varied ways we experience the land and how this relates to our sense of identity, connection and safety. This section will include Limestone Wall (2020), a large-scale painting by Hurvin Anderson which explores the artist’s relationship to his ancestral homeland. Meanwhile in the series A Pleasant Land. J. Samuel Johnson, & The Spectre of Unrecognised Black Figures (2023), photographer Jermaine Francis considers the issues that arise out of interactions with our everyday environments, positioning the Black figure in rural settings to instigate conversations around power, identity and the history of the English Landscape.
The exhibition will also celebrate the power of landscapes to evoke joy and pleasure, whether through the representation of personal experiences or through its expression in composition, colour and style. Paintings will include Kimathi Donkor’s Idyl series (2016-2020) and Che Lovelace’s vibrant paintings, The Climber (2022) and Moonlight Searchers (2022).
Finally, the display will also focus on the transformative power of nature to stimulate healing, renewal and wellbeing. Works featuring in this section include Alberta Whittle’s work which manifest self-compassion and collective care as key methods in battling anti-Blackness; Whittle invites viewers to interact with her work, and to imagine different futures. In Unforseen Journey of Self-Discovery (2020), a tapestry by Kimathi Mafafo, a woman emerges from a cocooned veil of white muslin, finding her way into the vibrant, colourful and healing space of the natural world.
The exhibition is curated by Lisa Anderson, Managing Director of the Black Cultural Archives and founder of Black British Art who said: “Soulscapes grew from the periods of enforced ‘lockdown’ that millions experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. During the same period, the question of racial equality in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement helped ignite conversation about inclusion and social justice. These historical moments gave way to new possibilities for landscape art, which is being interrogated by artists in new and expansive ways. At a time when global consciousness has been profoundly attuned to the precariousness and power of the natural world in our lives, I hope this exhibition will challenge perceptions of our relationship with nature.”
To find out more about the exhibition visit: https://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/2024/february/soulscapes/