NATURAL ABSTRACTIONS
GROUP SHOW
24 FEBRUARY - 18 MARCH 2023
A year after group show ‘Rebirth’ celebrated the arrival of spring and emergence from 2 years of lockdowns during the pandemic, Lee Sharrock is curating ‘Natural Abstractions’ at 99 Projects in West London.
“The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.” - John Berger ‘Ways of Seeing’ (1972)
Featuring Noj Barker, Miranda Donovan, Jemima Murphy, Rajan Seth and Sky Sharrock.
’Natural Abstractions’ explores the relationship between abstract art and natural phenomena. Each artist is inspired by nature, be it in the form of skies, sea, clouds, flowers or foliage. ‘Natural Abstractions’ runs from 23rd February to 18th March 2023.
The Natural Abstraction Hypothesis, proposed by John Wentworth states that “There exist abstractions (relatively low-dimensional summaries which capture information relevant for prediction) which are ‘natural’ in the sense that we should expect a wide variety of cognitive systems to converge on using them.”
Abstraction is defined as freedom from representational qualities in art, and the featured artists all use forms, gestural marks, shapes and colour palettes designed to create an abstracted version of reality. Water and liquid forms, weather and atmospheric patterns, lines of structure and growth, the luminosity of fauna and flora, and the palette of the earth provide a cornucopia of source material for artists to abstract. Abstract art is often perceived to have a moral dimension, with elements of spirituality, purity and simplicity.
Read a feature on the exhibition in FAD Magazine: https://fadmagazine.com/2023/02/23/natural-abstractions/
Find out more about the exhibition here: https://www.99projects.co.uk/natural-abstractions-exhibition-info
