Art Review - March Issue - (Page 96)
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SHERWIN LONDON-BASED ARTIST KATE ATKIN’S LARGE-SCALE DRAWINGS seem to
present the kind of exotic nature-studies explorers of yore brought back
to Britain in sea-battered sketchbooks. Her densely realised fronds,
shoots and copious ru es of leaves originate in more prosaic settings,
however. She finds her subjects in London’s parks, focusing on unusual
specimens such as over-pollarded trees, photographs them from many angles
and then recreates the plants as hyperreal abstractions through the
process of drawing, leaving photography looking flatly inadequate by
comparison. In resembling the imported sketches of those early natural
history enthusiasts and amateur botanists, Britain’s colonial past comes
to mind. Yet the journey Atkin’s work initiates is more of an interior
one. The title of one work, to the earliest beginnings of the world, when
vegetation rioted on the earth, Aesculus Hippocastanum II 2005 , was
culled from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness 1902 , in which the
colonial traders themselves are taken over by the primitive id lurking in
a psychological jungle. Indeed, like Conrad, Atkin’s studies of trees
and herbaceous borders have little to do with the Romantic conception of
nature. There is no sublime engagement here. Instead, as the environment
becomes a hothouse topic for artists, her work belies scepticism as to our
ability to relate e ectively to nature at all. In fact she downplays the
significance of using her tree models and so forth: it’s the process
that’s most important. Elements of nature become isolated, islands unto
themselves; studies in alienation that speak to the distance between
modern life and the natural world while charting a journey from the
subjective to the objective. Of course, as Atkin points out, islands are
also a place where stories begin. In such settings ideas can be broken
down into their essence, to be tested and built up again, or destroyed.
Though remarkable for her stunning draughtsmanship in a time of a
resurgent interest in drawing, the strong conceptual basis of the work is
pushing her practice into new areas. For her first solo show, at Museum
52 this month, Atkin has expanded her output into painted reliefs.
Resembling both fungal growth and aerial photographs of islands, they are
built up from papier mâché and chicken wire, and then painted to look
matt black with blackboard paint. Kate Untitled, 2006, pencil on paper,
116 x 226 cm. Courtesy Museum 52, London Atkin F ARTREVIEW uture
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Art Review - March Issue
Manifesto
Dispatches
Consumed
Tales from the City
David Lynch
Marcel Dzama
Future Greats
Art Pilgrimage: Moscow
Mixed Media: Moving Images
Mixed Media: Photography
Mixed Media: Digital
Reviews
Book Reviews
On the Town
On the Record
Art Review - March Issue
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