Guest curated by Iwona Blazwick of London’s Whitechapel Gallery, In Cloud Country is a unique anthology from the 18th to the 21st century. It brings together works on paper by some of the world’s most acclaimed artists including John Constable, Thomas Girtin, Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, Edgar Degas, Joan Miro, William Morris, Julian Opie, Chris Ofili, J.M.W. Turner, Rachel Whiteread & Thomas Gainsborough

In her poem, Two Campers in Cloud Country (1960), Sylvia Plath notes the indifference of the natural world ‘…where trees and clouds… pay no notice’. It is this autonomy which has also inspired generations of artists to make observations from nature to lead them to formal or symbolic abstraction.   

This exhibition brings together works on paper created by artists from the 18th to the 21st centuries who have made studies of plants and of land, sea or skyscapes. They translate what they have seen or felt, into a staggering array of different artistic strategies.

The great 18th century watercolourist John Sell Cotman uses pencil to capture the dynamism of light falling on trees by a riverbank; while the fleeting volumes of cumulous clouds are trapped by John Constable in his intense oil studies. 20th century Modernist, Henry Moore uses the branches of a tree to make vein like traceries of lines; while Italian sculptor Giuseppe Penone uses drawing to resurrect the tree that has been subsumed in a domestic plank of wood. Rachel Whiteread takes a symbol of the Arts & Crafts movement, the Tree of Life, and translates it into a contemporary icon.

Whether it is atmospheric phenomena, the linear or textural qualities of the botanical world or their political and metaphoric potential, artists’ studies from nature offer a breathtaking range of abstractions. 

In Cloud Country is a unique anthology that includes art, the abstract and the classic, and a collection of works that haven’t before been displayed together.

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Collection Artist(s)

Glossary

  • Abstraction

    To abstract means to remove, and in the art sense it means that artist has removed or withheld references to an object, landscape or figure to produce a simplified or schematic work. This method of creating art has led to many critical theories; some theorists considered this the purest form of art: art for art’s sake. Unconcerned as it is with materiality, abstraction is often considered as representing the spiritual.

  • Contemporary

    Existing or coming into being at the same period; of today or of the present. The term that designates art being made today.

  • Drawing

    The depiction of shapes and forms on a flat surface chiefly by means of lines although colour and shading may also be included. Materials most commonly used are pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, chalk and pastel, although other materials, including paint, can be used in combination.

  • Oil

    A medium in which ground pigments are mixed to produce a paste or liquid that can be applied to a surface by a brush or other tool; the most common oil used by artists is linseed, this can be thinned with turpentine spirit to produce a thinner and more fluid paint. The oil dries with a hard film, and the brightness of the colour is protected. Oil paints are usually opaque and traditionally used on canvas.