Sim Smith is pleased to present 'New Raw Green', a group show that explores new notions of the environment, body and the landscape, sculpture and painting, film and photography. It is set amid the Covid-19 pandemic, human rights protests and climate change, where the foundational assumptions of art are being remade.
"…A new ecological consciousness is on show, pointedly looking for where the raw power of art needed for the future might be found. These artists do not conform to any last century notion of collective form or grouping. They work across a variety of media, and the works do not hold to the conventions of explicitly political art. They do however point to the importance of inner images, visionary takes on the body and landscape as crucial parts of this new raw green world."
— David Surman, artist and curator of 'New Raw Green'.
The exhibition will combine work by 10 artists: Carl Anderson (b.1990, UK), Matija Bobičić (b.1987, Slovenia), Jonathan DeDecker (b.1992, USA), Sigrid Holmwood (b.1978, Australia), Emily Hunt (b.1981, Australia), Gibson/Martelli (b.1964/ b.1967, UK), Anthony Miler (b.1982, USA), David Surman (b. 1981, UK), Thom Trojanowski (b.1988, UK), Aviya Wyse (b.1988, Israel) Honest and complex, the work in the exhibition looks at where we are now both collectively and individually and also questions our imminent future, where we are going and what we might expect from it. There are balancing acts at play between the real and the dreamlike, the known and the unknown, a new space that has opened up where artists can imagine our future through myriad methods and narratives.
"…it has become necessary for artists to engage with new visionary forms in an effort to break with the past. Perhaps with some embarrassment or self-consciousness, artists are releasing themselves from the gravitational pull of the twentieth century to arrive at new questions and new conclusions. Both the question and the answer are in fact raw, uncooked. Their urgency begets an awkwardness that gives way to a power."
— David Surman, artist and curator of 'New Raw Green'.
