Viewing After Nature at CLOSE Gallery

Head to the captivating Somerset village of Hatch Beauchamp this week to see CLOSE gallery’s newly opened group exhibition, After Nature. Curated by Ben Tufnell, the show explores art made with nature in mind – inspired by its forms, materials and systems, contemplating how to address its infinite mysteries, cycles and inevitable transience.

The show traverses generations, from esteemed sculptors such as Richard Long and David Nash, both celebrated internationally for their evocative use of natural materials, to younger artists including Aimee Parrott, whose paintings and prints capture impressions of the non-linear movements of nature with breathtaking tacility, and new work by Fred Sorrell, whose research-based, abstract compositions evolve from colour studies made ‘in the field’ tracing the sensory experiences of the environment and its unique rhythms through the visual.

Also on view are Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s works simulating the perspective of bees and other pollinators, and Nissa Nishikawa’s ceramics fired with materials sourced from the surrounding landscape. Together – and especially potent against the rural setting surrounding the gallery – the works become a rallying call for environmental and ecological justice, addressing the complexities and fragility of our world, increasingly menaced by political decisions by major world leaders. After Nature invites audiences “to consider how contemporary art can offer new ways of seeing, sensing and engaging with the natural world at a time of urgent ecological change.”