Time and Tide
Both artists have made nature and earth’s raw materials, such as wood and stone, the centre of their sculpture. Time and Tide (13 March – 26 April) explores this element of their practice but in a two-dimensional form. Over twenty works include screenprints by Richard Long (b.1945) depicting rivulets of muddy water from the banks of the tidal River Avon in the UK and pastel editions by David Nash (b.1945) focusing on trees and their lifecycle through the seasons.
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Each print depicts rivulets of muddy water based on drawings made from mud taken from the banks of the River Avon. Long enjoys working with this mud for its tactility and material simplicity. The rise and fall of sea levels which create the River Avon’s high tides and huge steep mud banks exposed at low tide, are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon as it orbits the earth. Everything Long makes relates back to the earth’s surface and the prints on show represent natural forces which have transformed the earth for millennia.
“My work has become a simple metaphor for life. A figure walking down his road, making his mark. It is an affirmation of my human scale and senses: how far I walk, what stones I pick up, my particular experiences. Nature has more effect on me than I on it. I am content with the vocabulary of universal and common means: walking, placing, stones, sticks, water, circles, lines, days, nights, roads.”
- Richard Long
David Nash is inspired by his local landscape in rural North Wales. Mainly working with trees by carving sculpture in wood, Nash explores a sense of place and our relationship with the natural environment. Concerned for ecology, Nash often recycles the natural materials he uses - the wood for his sculptures comes from trees that have fallen naturally or have been felled due to age. The artist’s works on paper are as central to his practice as his sculptures.
Nash delicately depicts the enormous force of trees in pastel. Each work is produced by hand, where pastel is applied through a stencil. Bright reds and coopers suggest autumnal images, whilst a pair of editions, entitled Oak Leaves in May 1 and 2, 2019, trace the changing colours of leaves on one tree over one month in Spring. Nash explains,
"I noticed when daily passing a stand of oaks in May that the leaves were just starting to emerge from their buds. Some of the oaks were more advanced than others. The ones coming later were very small and an amber gold, and the ones more advanced were a little larger and yellow. As the days passed the early oak leaves grew larger and progressed to a light green as the chlorophyl evolved and then to a deeper green. All the trees went through this colour change over ten to fourteen days. Later the leaves became a dark waxy green as they engaged in the summer long work of photosynthesis. I worked through my colour range and finding more pastels locally I found the colours that represented this colour evolution."
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Photo credits:
© Richard Long. Courtesy Lisson Gallery. Photo: Jack Hems.
© David Nash. Photo: Jonty Wilde.