Ambrosine Allen: In the Course of Ages
Current exhibition
Overview
In The Course of Ages is a solo show of new work by artist Ambrosine Allen. Connected by a sense of time, this new body of work memorialises landscapes in their moments of urgency and transformation. Chaotic and foreboding yet beautiful and fantastical these landscapes emerge in an eruption of tension and flux.
Allen's intricate collages are made up of tiny paper cuttings taken from encyclopaedias, textbooks and old magazines. Images are broken down into small pieces and built back up in layers in a process so meticulous, Allen uses tweezers. Epic in scope, Allen's landscapes feature detailed aesthetic references to seventeenth and eighteenth century engravings of geographical nature. The sea invades the land, waves rise, sky's brood and terrifying storms roll in as Allen depicts our omnipotent ecosystems.
Capturing the sublime, Allen's work evokes beauty and awe, fear and submission, as she creates a portal into moments of geological crescendo. The artifice of human civilisation is exposed as these maelstroms of weather transport one to nature at its peak, reminding us of its primal power. The arduous process of Allen's work and the labouring force of nature slowly unfurl through the works' build-up of texture and detail. Mirroring the transience of the natural world, rocks and mountains rise and fall, push forward and recede, as Allen adds and takes away layers. The works demand the viewer observe them beyond their awe-inspiring initial strike and invite you to sit in the face of the immensity of nature.
Using a process so exacting, Allen finds herself in magical periods of stillness and contemplation from which her intuition takes over. This allows her to access memories and responses to the world that speak to the innate wonder we face when met with nature. The sense of urgency from the landscape exists in duality with the beauty and power that comes from the permanence of such geological phenomena, locating the viewer as a blip in the infinite timeline of the natural world extending before and beyond our human history.
Inviting us to bask in the vastness of our landscapes, Allen's collages present an alternative evolution that shadows our own and demands a reappraisal of the timelessness of nature.
Allen's intricate collages are made up of tiny paper cuttings taken from encyclopaedias, textbooks and old magazines. Images are broken down into small pieces and built back up in layers in a process so meticulous, Allen uses tweezers. Epic in scope, Allen's landscapes feature detailed aesthetic references to seventeenth and eighteenth century engravings of geographical nature. The sea invades the land, waves rise, sky's brood and terrifying storms roll in as Allen depicts our omnipotent ecosystems.
Capturing the sublime, Allen's work evokes beauty and awe, fear and submission, as she creates a portal into moments of geological crescendo. The artifice of human civilisation is exposed as these maelstroms of weather transport one to nature at its peak, reminding us of its primal power. The arduous process of Allen's work and the labouring force of nature slowly unfurl through the works' build-up of texture and detail. Mirroring the transience of the natural world, rocks and mountains rise and fall, push forward and recede, as Allen adds and takes away layers. The works demand the viewer observe them beyond their awe-inspiring initial strike and invite you to sit in the face of the immensity of nature.
Using a process so exacting, Allen finds herself in magical periods of stillness and contemplation from which her intuition takes over. This allows her to access memories and responses to the world that speak to the innate wonder we face when met with nature. The sense of urgency from the landscape exists in duality with the beauty and power that comes from the permanence of such geological phenomena, locating the viewer as a blip in the infinite timeline of the natural world extending before and beyond our human history.
Inviting us to bask in the vastness of our landscapes, Allen's collages present an alternative evolution that shadows our own and demands a reappraisal of the timelessness of nature.
Works
Installation Views
Video
