Groundling

Group exhibition with Jo Ball and Rebecca Burton.

‘The title of this exhibition came about when the three artists were talking about potential overlaps between their practices. The artists are all interested in human relationships to place - to the earth beneath our feet. In some ways they are working in what could be considered a subtle category of 'landscape', an approach of making art that began with prehistoric cave drawings and runs through to the present day, working directly with earth pigments, writing about the behaviour of birds and aspects of place they are drawn to, or examining the discord between our species and others.

The word Groundling refers to creatures that live on or near the earth; a fish at the bottom of the sea, a creeping plant running adventitious roots along the surface of the soil to find a foothold. A Groundling is also a 17th century term given to members of a theatre audience who stood in the pit below the stage - as ‘uncritical or unsophisticated spectators’.

In this current moment of environmental/crisis, it is possible to think that humans are the unrefined, though not innocent, onlookers, who have lost an older sense of knowing and connecting to our environment.’

Walcot Chapel Art Space, July 2023

Images by Dan Weill Photography