Land Sea Sky: Ingrid Pollard, JMW Turner & Vija Celmins
19 Oct 2024 - 12 Jan 2025
10am-5pm Tuesday to Sunday and selected bank holidays
In partnership with ARTIST ROOMS, Tate and National Galleries of Scotland.
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This major new exhibition brings together three artists who, although working more than 200 years apart, are connected through their close observation of nature and skilful use of materials.
Watercolours, paintings and prints by the much-loved JMW Turner (1775-1851), from The Box’s art collection and on loan from Tate, depict waves, wind, clouds and skies, showing how he captured the essence of both land and sea before the invention of photography.
Three Drops of Blood, a recent body of work by Pollard (b.1953) who is a multi-media artist and photographer, draws on two years of research that unearthed the folk histories of Devon’s botanical gardens and ferns. It was acquired by The Box in 2023 through the Freelands Art Fund Acquisition partnership and includes framed images, prints and a group of six unique bark boxes.
23 extraordinary prints and drawings from the ARTIST ROOMS collection by the internationally acclaimed Vija Celmins (b.1938) show the deep focus and exceptional skill she's sustained for more than six decades. Celmins repeatedly returns to the same subjects. Her intense images bring a careful focus to seemingly limitless aspects of nature from the sea and deserts, to the night sky.
This is not the first time that works by Celmins and Turner have been exhibited side by side. In 2012, several of the Turner works that are on loan to The Box were selected by Celmins for display at Tate Britain, coinciding with a presentation of her own work there.
We do share, I think, a love for the material we use. Turner leaves the mercurial attributes of watercolour as evidence, and I push the natural density of charcoal, graphite and mezzotint. I think we also both like the wilderness, the impossible image to capture and wrestle into that small piece of paper. We are not confessional artists looking to express ourselves but are more observers and describers of the world outside.
Artist Vija Celmins talking about the connection between her and JMW Turner in 2012
ARTIST ROOMS presents the work of international artists in solo exhibitions drawn from a national touring collection jointly owned by Tate and National Galleries of Scotland. Its programme reaches audiences across the UK and is developed through local partnerships.
Image credits
Trees by a Lake or River, with a Cloudy Sky c.1820-40 by JMW Turner (1775-1851). Photo - Tate
Kilchurn Castle with the Cruchan Ben Mountains, Noon by JMW Turner, 1801. Photo - The Box, Plymouth
Selected prints from Three Drops of Blood, 2022, Ingrid Pollard. Photos: The Box, Plymouth