- Venue
- Graves Gallery
- Starts
- Saturday, December 8, 2018
- Ends
- Saturday, March 16, 2019
- Address
- Graves Gallery, Surrey Street, Sheffield, S1 1XZ
- Location
- Yorkshire
- Organiser
- Graves Gallery, Sheffield
Originally curated by Lara Wardle, Director of the Jerwood Collection, for the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: Sea, Rock, Earth and Ice opens in Sheffield this December in an expanded version developed by Liz Waring, Curator of Visual Art, Museums Sheffield.
Sea, Rock, Earth and Ice celebrates Barns-Graham’s remarkable gift for capturing the spirit of specific landscapes. Bringing together paintings and works on paper spanning four decades, the works in the exhibition share an inherent understanding of the natural world and showcase her extraordinary ability to evoke a landscape in gradual flux, from eroding coastlines and volcanic vistas to the unseen slow creep of a glacier.
The paintings and drawings featured in the exhibition each bear testament to Barns-Graham’s passion for, and inherent understanding of, the natural world and explore her response to the diverse landscapes she encountered, primarily focusing on depictions of four different geographical areas: the Cornish coast; Lanzarote’s volcanic rock formations; clay formations on Italian hills; and the Grindelwald Glacier in Switzerland.
Writing about her fascination with the topography of places, Barns-Graham said, “Being in the presence of the power and awe of nature, be it to study the effect of the sun on glaciers in Switzerland, the rain on clay formations in Tuscany, the lava forms and the disturbances in the volcanic areas of Lanzarote … all wonders emphasising the importance of being at one with nature. This is a contemplation of sensing out, feeling and understanding particular rhythms, not just on the surface but underground as in Cornwall”.
