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We are very pleased that The Arborealists have collaborated with us again to present a new exhibition, themed on regeneration, to help promote tree planting: a vital strand of the environmental crisis recovery strategy. The exhibition will showcase a diverse range of approach, style media, and scale – and interpretation of this uplifting and positive subject.
The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) is a unique tree planting initiative, created to mark Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, which invites people from all across the United Kingdom to plant a tree for the Jubilee. With a focus on planting sustainably, the QGC will encourage the planting of trees to create a legacy in honour of the Queen’s leadership of the nation which will benefit future generations, The QGC will also dedicate a network of 70 ancient woodlands and identify 70 ancient trees to celebrate Her Majesty’s 70 years of service.
Trees provide a wonderfully versatile subject for artists, not only in terms of the rich variety of form, texture and colour they provide, whether individually or collectively, but also through the wealth of association - myth, folklore, religious and symbolic significance, that they have come to embody over many centuries. In Britain, trees as a subject have inspired artists from Gainsborough and Constable through to the Pre-Raphaelites, the Neo-Romantics and the Ruralists. Piet Mondrian and Victor Pasmore used the tree as a device to turn abstract and Paul Nash famously stated that he loved and worshipped trees and believed they were people.
The Arborealists were founded in 2013 by artist and curator Tim Craven following the seminal exhibition Under the Greenwood: Picturing the British Tree, staged at St Barbe Museum & Art Gallery, Lymington, in the heart of the New Forest. The Arborealists are a loose association of some 50 professional artists of diverse art practice who share the subject of the tree. Although united by their subject, the artists employ a diverse range of working practices: scale, medium, philosophy, style and technique. The results are by turn dramatic and contemplative, expressive, abstracted, hyperreal and surreal and they demonstrate that trees still have a deep relevance in contemporary art and retain their power to move us as a vital element in our landscape.
The group is far flung with members from Wales and the borders, to East Anglia and London and every southern county from Kent to Cornwall. The group enjoys a national profile and have already staged 25 exhibitions to acclaim in the UK, France and Gibraltar with many more planned for the future, including site-specific projects. They have to date also produced 7 illustrated publications to compliment the exhibitions.
This exhibition will include a number of works by guest artists, with strong associations with Nature in Art. One such piece will be a painting by Anthony Gibbs that was shown only part finished last summer, but which has now been completed.
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