Two years ago we were invited to join 20 other artists in a group show, with work that responds to three hills in Wales, just west of the border with Herefordshire and England. Yes, we said to Richard Bavin … why not? We love the energy of Richard’s approach to his own art, and it didn’t take more than a brief chat to decide we were up for it.
The Hogback Hills
One of the attractions was the chance to be introduced to a part of the world we didn’t know. The particular focus was three hills, Hanter, Stanner and Worsell Woods. These three hills are made of the oldest rocks in Wales – around 700 million years old. One of them is home to a lily that grows nowhere else in the UK and there are many other remarkable features and inhabitants (pied flycatchers, hairy wood ants, ancient oaks … the list goes on).
Richard Bavin has been working with Richard Gilbert and Tim Craven to curate the ‘Hogback Hills’ exhibition. While one fascination about the hills rests on their geology and ecology, the curator’s interest was also driven by the idea of the Picturesque. This also drew us in – with questions about the validity of a Picturesque ‘take’ today; when climate crisis and biodiversity loss call artists to rethink practices and the narratives that art/ists can perpetuate or kindle. These hills, which are beautiful and have much biodiversity to celebrate, overlook a landscape where other hills have been eaten away, or are still being cut into, by quarrying.
Meeting the hills
In autumn 2023 we visited for a few days. On the first day, Richard introduced us to the hills, and then we followed our own curiosity. We then devised three phrases to place on our Canvas, and in spring this year (2024) we returned. We spent a few days searching for the ideal place to erect the canvas on each hill. Rob made large format photographs of the canvas in situ, and Harriet wrote notes and took sound recordings. In between, there was a lot of walking and extended periods of time simply sitting, and getting to know the place better.
Making work for the exhibition
For the exhibition at the Sidney Nolan Trust, we brought the pieces together in a work we have called ‘Notions of Paradise‘: a six-frame piece comprising of three images and a poem. The images are colour, shot on Rob’s large format Horseman camera; the poem flows in three sections, each matched with an image. In a second piece, which will show at the Ridgebank Gallery in Kington, we combine a short poem with three black-and-white large format images, hand printed using liquid emulsion on art paper.
In July we joined most of the other artists at the Sidney Nolan Trust for the exhibition opening – a brilliant opportunity to meet other artists and talk to them about their work. And the Earth Photo exhibition is in place outside the gallery, in the grounds of the SNT. Between them, these two exhibitions are moving and provocative. We’ll be back!
Harriet with the Canvas on Stanner
Rob making a photograph of the Canvas in Worsell Woods
Rob and Harriet with the Canvas on Hanter Hill
Our notes for the exhibition booklet:
In our encounters with the ‘Hogback’ hills, we were struck by their special qualities as much as by their juxtaposition to nearby quarries. This is a small-scale reflection of what happens the world over, with fragments of abundance surviving in landscapes dominated by human extractavism. Thinking about the Picturesque, and what artists may choose to depict, we wanted to combine image and poetry to allude to what is outside the frame, including what can be perceived with senses other than vision.
Gilpin asserted that the Picturesque offered a kind of beauty that was ‘agreeable in a picture’ and thought it reasonable for an artist to intervene or change a scene to make it more agreeable. Our intervention seeks to raise questions not only about human attitudes to the living world, but also about how using the Picturesque lens in the opening decades of the twenty-first century might affect the evolution of narratives that carry us, and other species, into the future.
Notions of Paradise is composed of three parts, none of which stands alone. The fragments rely on one another and together form something whole.
‘Notions of Paradise’ at Sidney Nolan Trust
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