Out of Britain - Art Exhibit at CAP in Shuwaikh Sep 17 – Oct 25

Industrial  City by L.S Lowry

Exhibition Date: September 17 - October 25 2012

The exhibition ‘Out of Britain’ brings together, for the first time in Kuwait, 52 key artworks selected from the British Council Collection. Spanning a period of almost one hundred years of creativity by significant British artists, the works on display take as a common theme the landscapes of the British Isles. Structured around an imagined journey the display begins in the city and lead out into the countryside to follow the coastline before ultimately returning to an urban landscape.

The works in the show illustrate individual artist’s attempts to find their place amongst an ever-changing environment where they are often driven to challenge traditional ways of interpreting and framing the landscape.

For the first time in Kuwait and in collaboration with Contemporary Art Platform in Kuwait City, the British Council is exhibiting selected artworks from its Collection. Out of Britain explores the theme of the British landscape, from the urban to the rural and the UK’s encircling coastline. Featuring over 50 artworks, the exhibition examines the ways in which artists have engaged with landscape and addressed timeless and fundamental questions about man's place in the world. Structured around an imagined journey the display will begin in the city and lead out into the countryside to follow the coastline before ultimately returning to an urban landscape. The works in the show illustrate individual artist’s attempts to find their place amongst an ever-changing environment where they are often driven to challenge traditional ways of interpreting and framing the landscape.

Pictures included in the selection range from Lowry's bustling, industrial Salford to the smoke-belching chimneys of the Black Country by Edward Wadsworth and the anonymous hinterland of industrial parks in the Midlands of David Rayson. The literary Britain of Bill Brandt’s photographs is contrasted with the London painted by Humphrey Ocean and David Hepher. Views of the shoreline in Scotland, as drawn by Eric Ravilious in wartime, are presented together with the Essex coast seen by John Nash; the rugged and rocky coast of Wales by Graham Sutherland and Beachy Head as presented in the star-shaped painting by Jeffrey Camp. Sculptures by Nicholas Pope and David Nash - literally hewn from the wood - andSpring Circle by Richard Long, a Turner prize winner, comprising slabs of Delabole slate from Cornwall, have also been added where the artists talk of a direct engagement with the earth. Amongst these sculptural objects a new installation by Conrad Shawcross is also presented, which mounts video projection onto the gunwales of a rowboat to trace a journey through the LeaValley. The inclusion of paintings by Peter Lanyon and John Nash look to the very essence of landscape in their more abstract depictions. 

Out Of Britain is supported by a programme of public lectures, workshops for artists and teachers as well as a nationwide online art competition entitled Out of Arabia. Visit the competition website HERE for full details.