Soulscapes
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
14 February – 2 June 2024
Sunrise, 2023
Inkjet print on cotton paper
Courtesy of the artist and Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid
Onyx Cave (Stones Against Diamonds), 2015
© Isaac Julien / Private collection, London
Dulwich Picture Gallery presents Soulscapes, a major exhibition of landscape art that expands and redefine the genre. Featuring more than 30 contemporary works, it spans 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, as well as some of the most important emerging voices working today.
Soulscapes explores our connection with the world around us through the eyes of artists from the African Diaspora. It considers the power of landscape art and reflect on themes of belonging, memory, joy and transformation.
The exhibition is curated by Lisa Anderson, Managing Director of the Black Cultural Archives and founder of Black British Art. Anderson 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.”
Limestone Wall, 2020
© Hurvin Anderson. Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery
Photo: Richard Ivey
A Pleasant Land. J. Samuel Johnson,
& the Spectre of Unrecognised Black Figures, 2023
Photographic montage, 130cm x 100cm
Courtesy of Artist Jermaine Francis
The exhibition opens 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. Limestone Wall (2020), a large-scale painting by Hurvin Anderson, depicts the tropical foliage of Jamaica and explores the artist’s relationship to his ancestral homeland. 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.
Cassava Garden, 2015
Acrylic, transfers, colour pencil, charcoal and
commemorative fabric on paper, 182.88 x 152.4 cm
© Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Courtesy the artist,
Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner.
Photo: Robert Glowacki
Reflecting on landscapes and memory, the exhibition considers how artists have used the natural world to express personal histories. Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s lush multimedia piece, Cassava Garden (2015), layers images from fashion magazines, pictures of Nigerian pop stars, and samplings from family photo albums to represent a hybrid cultural identity. The Gallery’s mausoleum is home to a site-specific installation of Phoebe Boswell’s I Dream of a Home I Cannot Know (2019), a meditative video work created over the course of six years that documents daily life in Zanzibar, a place of deep connection for the artist.
On Episode Seven, 2020
Acrylic on canvas, 61 x 76 cm
Courtesy of the Artist and Niru Ratnam, London
Photo: Kimathi Donkor
Moonlight Searchers, 2022
Acrylic and dry pigment on board panels
Private collection.
Courtesy of the artist, Corvi Mora, Various Small Fires
and Nicola Vassell Gallery
Soulscapes celebrates 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. Che Lovelace’s vibrant paintings, The Climber (2022) and Moonlight Searchers (2022), depict the flora, fauna, figures, landscapes and rituals of the Caribbean. Paintings from Kimathi Donkor’s Idyl series (2016-2020) depict Black subjects free to be themselves within nature, hopeful visions that might be approached through the idea of Black Joy.
Artist Kimathi Donkor, said: “My ‘Idyl’ paintings celebrate tender and contemplative moments shared by families and friends as they enjoy serene meadows, lakes, mountains, forests, rivers and beaches together. As an artist who has often focussed on ‘the struggle’, these works represent hopeful visions that honour what the fulfilment of black liberation might sometimes feel like -- even if only fleetingly.”
Unforeseen Journey of Self-Discovery, 2020
Hand and Machine Embroidered Fabric, 112 x 98cm
Image courtesy of the artist / Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery
Finally, the exhibition explores the transformative power of nature to stimulate healing, renewal and wellbeing. 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. Works by Alberta Whittle 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.
Artist Alberta Whittle said: “Within my practice, thinking about the land and the natural world as sources of indigenous, pre-colonial knowledge(s) has become a pathway to explore different ways of dreaming new ways of being. Landscape art can gather together less recognised or forgotten relationships between humanity and the land as well as become a lightning rod for galvanising conservation, especially with devastation from climate colonialism looming against the horizon.”
Jennifer Scott, Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery, said: “Soulscapes marks a new approach to landscape art. Featuring some of the greatest artists of our day, it’s an exciting opportunity to re-present the genre within Dulwich Picture Gallery, the home of the celebrated European landscape masters of the past. This visually stunning exhibition highlights the contemporary relevance of nature in art and its universal possibilities of healing, reflection and belonging.”
DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY
Gallery Road, London SE21 7AD
