KEW GARDENS: Botanical Art in the 21st Century & Spring and Summer

A new exhibition, Botanical Art in the 21^st Century, celebrates the remarkable worldwide renaissance of botanical art today. Both traditional and new painting techniques are illustrated in this display of exquisite contemporary botanical exhibits by artists from around the world.

This show is a modification of the exhibition ‘Botanical Art into the Third Millennium’ shown last year at the Museo della Grafica, Pisa, and includes paintings from the extensive Shirley Sherwood Collection, together with recent works by Italian artists, some having never previously exhibited in the UK.

Outstanding plant portraits and meticulous studies demonstrate the breadth and depth of botanical art, illustrating how artists are using different media and new techniques to develop the genre into the 21^st century. Life-sized or vastly magnified subjects are on display in this exhibition, including Catharine Nicholson’s stunning pen and ink drawing ‘some get more eaten up than others’ Norway Spruce cones – magnified x 7 which when observed up close morphs into an otherworldly landscape. Kimiyo Maruyama’s Pinus palustris is a feat of attention to detail; a painstakingly painted watercolour which leaves you enraptured at her patience and skill.

Botanical Art in the 21^st Century aims to showcase just how exciting the future is for botanical art.

The exhibition at The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art will run throughout spring and summer when a stroll through the Gardens is surely the perfect accompaniment to this botanical display. Enjoy wonderful bulbs and blossoms and fully immerse yourself in the explosive colour and scents of the Gardens after absorbing all that the gallery has to offer this season. Use our spring colour bulbwatch map to plan your visit http://www.kew.org/visit-kew-gardens/seasons/bulb-map/index.htm.

Paintings of Magnolias by Barbara Oozeerally are also featured in this exhibition and are on display in two of the gallery spaces until 3^rd August 2014. Paintings from Overleaf by the award-winning botanical artist Susan Ogilvy, delicately depicting a range of leaves selected from trees across the temperate regions of Europe and North America, will also be exhibited until 10^th August.

Overleaf by Richard Ogilvy and Susan Ogilvy, published by Kew, is available to buy at Kew’s online shop http://shop.kew.org/overleaf.html

Written by: admin on February 19, 2014.