“Throughout Jaquetta Hawkes' book, "A Land”, published in 1951 she insists on perceiving the land, the science of the earth and forms of this nation's geology in particular as extensions of her body and mind in an almost ecstatic embrace. Robert McCartney picks up this passionate and poetic combination of phenomenology and geology in his ground-breaking essays in Landmarks and The Old Ways . My understanding of Gernot Bohn's Aesthetics of Atmospheres also adds a phenomenological weight to perceiving forms and space . Not just of the land though but also includes the atmospheres surrounding the earth's architectures.
To use the phrase EARTHLAND as the title for this new collection of paintings is to borrow a chapter heading from McFarlane's Landmarks and I like to think that it has the poetic heft and quality of allusion that I feel about this land across which I walk, cycle and swim.
Moors and rivers and estuaries and fields and seas for ever, my body, my mind, our bodies our minds, our land, EARTHLAND”.
This is Gareth’s fifth solo exhibition with the Gallery as well as exhibiting at Art Fairs, both Internationally and Nationally.