Exhibition Review: Photography | Brian Rope
Emotional
Landscapes I | Jenny Adams, Julie Delves, Eva van Gorsel & Delene White
ANCA Gallery, Dickson | 17 July - 4 August 2024
This art exhibition at the ANCA Gallery with the Tinshed Art Group examines the emotional connections that humans have with the natural world. It makes observations about the nuanced and intricate interaction between the natural world and humankind. It looks at how humans affect the climate and the earth, but it also maintains optimism that appreciating nature's marvels makes us feel a part of it and inspires us to take constructive action. Through this investigation, the show hopes to spark reflection, foster empathy, and motivate viewers to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of a peaceful and long-lasting cohabitation with the natural world.
The participating artists work with various mediums. Jenny Adams and Julie Delves paint with acrylic on canvas. Delene White uses oils on canvas, found objects, and fibreglass & silicone. I enjoyed all their works very much, particularly White’s installation The bigger picture, with its lightweight wall marching ants.
However, I will concentrate here on the photography of Eva van Gorsel - since it is the art form in which I work myself and, so, am best qualified to discuss. This artist’s seventeen pieces are archival pigment prints. The seventeen works form a series created by van Gorsel for this exhibition. They are all of a high standard and I was most pleased to see several of them had already been purchased when I visited.
Watching Out explores the fact that human development and the pursuit of food security have been intertwined throughout history. The artist notes that deforestation for cultivation disrupts ecosystems, leading to biodiversity loss and climate change. She reminds us that humanity needs to watch over the landscapes and ecosystems we depend on for survival, making concerted efforts toward environmentally friendly and socially responsible land use practices.
In that piece, two or more images have been combined into a beautifully blended composite showing something of the interactions between humans and a rural landscape. So there is a human looking out over the landscape, plus a section of fencing and parts of a building constructed by humans.
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| Watching Out © Eva van Gorsel |
The same approach has been taken with most of the artist’s other works, but the messages are diverse. For example, Morning Flight includes birds and van Gorsel’s artist statement speaks about how engaging with natural environments has been linked to improved mental health, increased creativity, and heightened feelings of belonging fostering a deeper connection with the natural world.
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| Morning Flight © Eva van Gorsel |
I particularly appreciated Encroachment. It incorporates a drawing of Canberra’s central national capital area and two examples of the native animals seen in the city’s urban areas. This is all about the need for urban planning that achieves sustainable developments.
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| Encroachment © Eva van Gorsel |
There are also works about foxes, weeds and habitats. One artwork is titled Endemophilia. That word may not be familiar to you. If that is the case, let me tell you that it is about the particular love manifest in the people of a place that is special to them. It is what gives people a particular sense of belonging as opposed to a global sense of place. This image shows us an example of the type of water and forest environment where the artist feels a deep sense of belonging.
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| Endemophilia © Eva van Gorsel |
Other works tell us to stop messing with the environment, speak about the unpredictability of nature, discuss the history of climate extremes, reference the fact that water is essential for life and note that global carbon emissions have surged to record levels.
This exhibition most successfully does what it set out to do. I commend it to you and applaud all the artists.
This review is also available on the author's blog here.