Capturing the British countryside, from the South Downs to the Norfolk Fen and Constable’s Country in the East of England, Richard Bilingham’s photographs expose the rich textures in these landscapes. His panoramic views unearth the particular geology, vegetation, changing weather and light conditions of these places, some of which he revisited over a period of years.

The works in Panoramic have a visceral aesthetic, revealing Billingham’s emotional and creative relationship to nature and landscape and drawing on his background and sensibilities as a painter. They explore rhythm, pattern, repetition and dynamic composition as well as the tableaux in nature and often record a transformative moment in the landscape. References to the pictorial rhetoric of British landscape painting from the 19th century to the present are reflected and further reinforced by showing these works alongside a selection from Towner’s Collection chosen by Billingham and his panoramic film Sweep, 2004.

Richard Billingham is best known for his 1996 photobook Ray’s A Laugh, which documents the life of his father, mother and brother. In 2001, he was shortlisted for the Turner Prize for his solo show at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. He holds professorships at the University of Gloucestershire and Middlesex University.

The exhibition has been supported by Middlesex University and University of Gloucestershire.

Presented in association with Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London

http://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/

 

Collection Artist(s)

Glossary

  • 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.

  • Film

    A transparent, flexible plastic material, usually of cellulose acetate or polyester, on which light-sensitive emulsion is coated, or on which an image can be formed by various transfer processes.

  • Landscape

    Landscape is one of the principle genres of Western art. In early paintings the landscape was a backdrop for the composition, but in the late 17th Century the appreciation of nature for its own sake began with the French and Dutch painters (from whom the term derived). Their treatment of the landscape differed: the French tried to evoke the classical landscape of ancient Greece and Rome in a highly stylised and artificial manner; the Dutch tried to paint the surrounding fields, woods and plains in a more realistic way. As a genre, landscape grew increasing popular, and by the 19th Century had moved away from a classical rendition to a more realistic view of the natural world. Two of the greatest British landscape artists of that time were John Constable and JMW Turner, whose works can be seen in the Tate collection (www.tate.org.uk). There can be no doubt that the evolution of landscape painting played a decisive role in the development of Modernism, culminating in the work of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists . Since then its demise has often been predicted and with the rise of abstraction, landscape painting was thought to have degenerated into an amateur pursuit. However, landscape persisted in some form into high abstraction, and has been a recurrent a theme in most of the significant tendencies of the 20th Century. Now manifest in many media, landscape no longer addresses solely the depiction of topography, but encompasses issues of social, environmental and political concern.

  • Painting

    Work of art made with paint on a surface. Often the surface, also called a support, is a tightly stretched piece of canvas, paper or a wooden panel. Painting involves a wide range of techniques and materials, along with the artist's intellectual concerns effecting the content of a work.