Adele Gibson Art
About
Artist Statement
I am essentially a landscape painter and love to spend time in nature. My paintings aim to re-present the beauty of our natural world. However, we are living in the Anthropocene and my work engages with this theme of present history: a time where the impact we are having on the planet is being considered within the longer history of the earth. At this moment in time, how we negotiate this impact alongside our desire for progress and consumption will affect our very survival.
In July 2018 I participated in the Arctic Circle residency, a 3-week art and science expedition to Svalbard in the high Arctic. This experience, together with time I have spent in Iceland and the Amazon basin has provided the inspiration for my work.
I use different media in the making of my work however the theme and concerns are consistent. My work in the environment uses nature directly: for example, the movement of the tide and the melting of frost together with carbon and iron oxide pigments. These pieces aim to make lasting visible traces of these ephemeral processes.
I draw inspiration for my paintings from historical aesthetic of the Northern Romantic tradition and I use the motifs of fire and ice as evocations of the environmental theme. I consider my work to be elegiac in that it stems from my sadness for what we have already lost and my concern for the fragility of what remains.
Biography
Adele Gibson has painted professionally since completing her MA in Fine Art at the University of Brighton in 2017. She represents herself alongside having work in galleries across the South of England.
Adele’s paintings aim to convey a sense of the sublime beauty of the natural world. A residency in Svalbard in the High Arctic, a region which has fascinated artists for centuries, became particularly poignant given the rapid changes to the region and the fragility of the ecosystem there. In 2019 she visited the Amazon rainforest and witnessed first hand the devastation that is happening to that very important ecosystem.
Alongside her painting practice, Adele works as a freelance curator and arts organiser and successfully gained Arts Council funding for a project, ‘Let’s talk about the Anthropocene’. In July 2019 this resulted in an exhibition and residency for 8 artists at the University of Brighton Grand Parade campus. She selected and curated 50 works of art received from open submissions across the UK and as far afield as India, Canada and the US. For more information about this project see www.anthrotalk.com.
Awards and exhibitions
Jan 2022 - 'Freeze, melt' Solo show: Meiklejohn gallery, Lewes, East Sussex
June 2021 - 'Elementa' solo exhibition at the Star Brewery gallery, Lewes, East Sussex.
2020 - Maze gallery, Barnes
March 2020 - Root and Branch, exhibition at Kevis House gallery, Petworth, West Sussex.
July 2019: Arts Council Award: Let’s talk about the Anthropocene: project organiser and curator, University of Brighton
May 2019: 6 at the Regency Town House, MA alumni exhibition during Brighton Open House event
June 2018: Selected artist for summer International Arctic Circle Expedition to the High Arctic
2018 - Grain Gallery, Sherborne, Dorset – oil paintings
Feb 2018: Ashdown gallery, Forest Row, East Sussex
Sept 2017: Shortlisted for National Open Art competition
July 2018: MA Fine Art show, Main gallery, University of Brighton
Feb 2017: Selected for MA and other Post-Graduates, Atkinson Gallery, Millfield School, Somerset
Oct 2015: Selected artist at PURE arts agency autumn show, Powdermills hotel, Battle, East Sussex
Sept 2015: Brighton Art Fair