This exhibition showcases work by four Hampshire artists that seeks to reconcile humans as part of plants, animals and natural phenomena and in doing so to recognise the importance of women as protectors of nature.
In Her Nature aims to communicate this zeitgeist by producing art sustainably, using materials that can be repurposed or transformed.
Kristin Rawcliffe lives in Hampshire. She is an oil painter whose work explores themes of motherhood, isolation, and women’s experience. She has been reflecting on the challenges of creating art within a market-driven culture, and how modern living can distance us from the natural rhythms that once shaped daily life. Through her paintings she seeks to express a deeper sense of connection between humanity and the natural world.
Kristin’s intention for this exhibition is to examine not only subject matter, but her own practice and its sustainability. She will be reusing and repurposing work she has already made, raising questions about the use and value of art, specifically from her point of view as a woman artist. Kristin’s current project involves re-using old, unsold canvases. They have a similar feel to oilcloth-style tablecloths used for her family dining table. These canvases, cut up and sewn together, become unique and original table cloths, with echoes of work made for the art world. Though rejected, they become domestic, a return to a female nature.
Rae Mason is an Artist and Art Therapist based in Reading. Her vivid, shapeshifting drawings explore the process of metamorphosis in nature and its connection to personal transitions.
For this exhibition, Rae used weaving and collage to repurpose her drawings, paintings, and prints. The work is inspired by the fates of Greek mythology. Three feminine figures with the power to create and destroy, the fates are associated with weaving and women’s ingenuity. They also bear resemblance to the ‘maiden, mother, crone’ goddess archetype - feminine phases closely aligned to lunar and seasonal cycles. The process of weaving was meditative, revealing patterns and connections in her work amongst enduring themes of birth, life and death cycles.
Susan Cunningham is an artist who documents nature within urban and peri-urban environments. She studied an MA in Fine Art from Birmingham City University, and currently lives in Oxfordshire.
For this exhibition Susan will be exploring the decline of oak trees and providing her own solution. One in three trees face extinction worldwide (IUCN.org). The oak is one of those trees. Susan’s project draws attention to the importance of oak trees in our surrounding landscape. Since antiquity oak trees have been part of sacred spaces. At Dodona there was an oak tree next to the oracle; the priestesses would listen to the wind rustling the oak leaves and interpret this sound into actions to be taken. Susan has listened to the wind rustling her local oak tree, requesting her to re-purpose the fallen leaves into small oracular containers for acorns, ready to be planted. These objects are accompanied by paintings of the local oak tree, created outside, over the period of one year (December 2024-2025).
Caroline Streatfield lives and works in Reading. She has an art practice focused on large scale portrait painting. Her paintings deal with issues of identity, memory and history. She has explored her own family history, including her maternal Eastern European heritage. Caroline has also painted the lives of the people of Oxford road, Reading.
For this exhibition, Caroline will explore how people experience nature and how they see it. Caroline is conscious of sustainability, making her own frames and stretching the canvas by hand. She also makes her own paints which are infused with the materials of the landscape she is painting. This helps immerse the viewer within the time they were made and to ground them literally to the present time.
instagram.com/carolinestreatfield/
PLEASE NOTE - This exhibition takes place on the Willis Museum's 1st floor, which is only accessible by stairs.
