seasons
Exhibited: 18th May 2021 - 30th August 2021
Location: Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park, UK
Seasons invites you to experience a year in nature. Winding sinuously around the gallery, the installation takes the visitor on an experiential voyage through the year: opening with spring, before looping almost full circle through summer, autumn, and winter. The work is both an end and a beginning, a reflection on the passage of time and a call to action.
‘I have always wanted to observe the seasons daily, taking in every element, looking at the sky and my surroundings and absorbing the change of season through plant life. Living in Britain, we are fortunate to have four distinct seasons: I would like the viewer to have a solitary moment to immerse themselves in these, and in the rhythm of the earth.’
- Rebecca Louise Law
Central to Rebecca Louise Law’s practice is the value of the natural world. Seasons includes around 250,000 flowers, which have been carefully preserved and reborn as artistic materials. Some of the flowers date back to 2004: their beauty and colour given life in death. Woven through the installation is material foraged from Compton Verney, 120 acres of grounds, including oak branches, pinecones and daffodils.
nature diaries
In November 2019 Rebecca began to keep daily records of nature. This involved writing, drawing, and preserving aspects of the natural world in notebooks, and recording the sights and sounds of nature in a daily Instagram diary (@rebeccalouiselawdiary), from which she created a film.
“A connection to nature every day puts life in perspective. It can simplify everything and give clarity. I continue to work on our spiritual connection to nature. I know that for as long as I have the time to do this I stand in a place of privilege. With this time I hope to create spaces that will allow the viewer to journey with me in the wonder of our natural world. I thank God for this honour and I pray that I create spaces with humility and an openness that will allow others to contemplate their unique existence.”
— Rebecca Louise Law, January 2021.
pAINTINGS & Weaves
Seasons was commissioned before the onset of the global pandemic, but recent events have made the project more resonant. Lockdowns throughout 2020 and 2021 grounded Rebecca at her home in Snowdonia, giving her ‘the gift of time’. Her poignant nature diaries, paintings and colourful natural weaves were created during an unprecedented period in global history. Law describes the process of observing and recording nature daily as nurturing and healing - a sentiment shared by many who found solace in the delights of nature unfolding on their doorsteps.