Addy Gardner – ‘Everything and Nothing’, tranquil, textured paintings to celebrate the wildness of nature: Whitespace Gallery, Edinburgh
‘I am an artist inspired by the living planet, climate change, protecting nature, the theme of wildness – landscapes defining the beauty and energy of wild spaces.’ Addy Gardner
Around the gallery, the viewer is immediately immersed in a flourishing natural environment of trees, ponds, rivers in this collection of cool, abstract landscapes. With sweeping brushstrokes, they portray glowing light and atmospheric mood with such imaginative, dramatic vision.
This is illustrated clearly in ‘Canopy of Green’ with its delicate blending of shades, emerald, olive, lime in a furious flurry of glossy leaves and grasses perhaps on the banks of a river, depicted with just a slither of turquoise blue.
Canopy of Green More of a woodland scene in ‘A place I cannot experience,’ the title perhaps referring to somewhere, half faded in distant memory which cannot be revisited in real life. Within a shimmer of sketchy splashes are delineated dark trees, bushes, a path leading off through a gap on the left with bent branches and perhaps a wicket fence.
A Place I cannot experience In these almost surreal, soulful, silent scenes, Gardner aims to capture her passion to preserve wildness and the right to roam – currently in Britain the public is only allowed access to 8% of land.
‘We need space to wander and to dream .. ..access to nature is access to our own wild, spiritual mind.’ Nick Hayes, ‘The Book of Tresspass’
She also recalls her childhood when she was free to play and wander, exploring secret paths through imagined places, as if stepping into a pop up story book. This reminds me of a favourite book when I was young which transports you to a magical place:
‘The leafless stems of climbing roses were matted together, with grass of a wintry brown, clumps of bushes, thin grey or brown branches spreading over everything. It was this hazy tangle from tree to tree which made it all look so mysterious.’ The Secret Garden, (1911) Frances Hodgson Burnett
Where we played until the sun went down Just like Mary Lennox, Addy Gardner recalls her private, secret place, ‘Where we played until the sun went down’ is a wild tangle of trees in this green jungle beside a meandering river in the hazy, pale yellow dusk. This impressionistic abstract style creates a swirling fluidity of light, air and water, a reflective mood of stillness in this tranquil composition.
Several of these landscapes combine mixed media and torn pages from fairy tales as a collage, as illustrated in ‘The dead tree and me.’ This depicts a real decaying tree Addy observed which miraculously began budding into leaf again. When viewed up close, it has a finely crafted layering of oil paint, enamel, graphite, charcoal, with dripping streaks, a glossy smear of thick black bitumen represents an oil slick as a subtle message of environmental damage to the planet.
Hidden within the paint are tiny scraps of printed text from a book of Fairy Tales in which the forest is a symbol of the natural world, primitive and untamed. With a glimmer of dying sunlight, the dead tree bursts into life again in this magical, mysterious shadowy, shady woodland.
Landscapes do not interest me for their order, but their beautiful disarray. I am filled with a sense of loss for all the natural spaces that are disappearing under concrete. I hope that my work allows a sense of this to help Rewilding to take root.” Addy Gardner
Addy Gardner’s landscapes at Whitespace Gallery As well as paintings, a collection of skeletal twigs, branches, a Paper Tree are like natural sculptures. A large book of fairy tales is decorated with collage scraps of poems and stories.
Addy Gardner clearly shares her vision of the lush, lost world of untamed nature she recalls from childhood, and now witnessing the change to our environment.
Reflecting the dreamlike forests of classic fairy tales, these are lyrical, tranquil landscapes with a narrative: painterly poems to take us on an enchanting journey of the imagination with an emotional and spiritual sense of time and place.
Everything and Nothing – paintings by Addy Gardner
Whitespace Gallery 76 East Crosscauseway, Edinburgh, EH8 9HQ
23rd – 26th September 2024: Mon- Wed, 10am – 6pm; Thursday, 10am-4pm
Read more about Addy Gardner, view images and purchase artwork on her website
Addy Gardner – work in progress, paint and decorative collage