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Robert Spellman reviews Nature’s Imprint: A Journey Through Time And Art an exhibition at the Whitebox gallery space of the Bankside Hotel.

Neatly curated in the below-ground Whitebox gallery space of the Bankside Hotel on the south foot of London’s Blackfriars Bridge is a vibrant and impactful art exhibition exploring the relationship between artistic practice, the natural world and sustainability.

Seven artists, including internationally renowned textile artist and eco-activist Claudy Jongstra, have contributed to an exhibition concerned with environmental preservation and sustainable living. By demonstrating innovative approaches to sustainability in the conception and making of artworks, the viewer is led to evaluate the quality of their own eco-related behaviour.

No artist could make such claims without establishing traceable and sustainable sources for their materials, and so all practitioners in this Thames-side exhibition incorporate sustainable materials and processes in their work. The hotel itself is acutely eco-conscious and holds Green Key accreditation.

A hugely significant participant in the exhibition is Claudy Jongstra who is globally celebrated for her monumental works using wool felt made from Drenthe Heap sheep, the oldest known breed in Northern Europe. Claudy maintains her own flock of this rare animal and has cultivated a botanical garden to produce dyes, thereby creating a completely sustainable chain for her work.

Her contribution here is two striking hangings inspired by Thames history: the bluish greys, indigoes and golds of Washed Ashore is a comment on the “mudlarkers” of a few centuries ago who combed the riverbank for anything of value to sell, while Lost And Found is a response to the river’s one-time bustling trade and intercultural exchange.

Another artist, Kelly Jenkins, combines textile work with painting to create a “symphony of paint, embroidery and geometric data” to reflect the natural world and information age in intense, playful ways. Her work has appeared in collections including the Tate Library and V&A.

Mixed media is used in a different way by Raf Zawistowski. Raf studied the Renaissance in Florence and employs traditional “Old Master” techniques with modern ones, to emphasise overlooked colours in nature with ultra vividness by working and scraping away at layered paint and wax on the canvas.

Texture is also important to award-winning painter Lyra Morgan whose fascination with the emphemeral nature of water, be it in cloud or river form, is expressed by a colour-dragging technique that builds a multi-layered look to her work.

The blues and greens of her paintings have a cooling, immersive effect upon the viewer, where the act of looking and losing oneself is a metaphor for our inseparable relationship with earth and by extension the urgency of responsible and sustainable living.

Nature’s Imprint: A Journey Through Time And Art

Runs from May 29 to November 24 at Whitebox, Bankside Hotel, 2 Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 9JU

Main image Luminous X and XI by Lyra Morgan. For all the artists in Nature’s Imprint: A Journey Through Time And Art: https://www.banksidehotel.com/natures-imprint-a-journey-through-time-and-art/