The Vanner Gallery

About

This exhibition takes as its starting point the stunning south Icelandic coast, represented by the coordinates 63°N 19°W. Time spent in this diverse landscape inspired Tonia Gunstone's latest series of abstract paintings and drawings which seek to capture the majesty of Iceland's iconic geography and in so doing explore what these vistas mean for the human experience.

Sculptor Jonathan Loxley has taken this new body of work as the point of origin for a series of pieces in stone and marble. These instinctive, primal works in ancient and tactile raw materials multiply the sensations implied by the wall-mounted works and bring us deeper into the landscape.

Both artists seek to evoke the experience of being fully present in a place, to go beyond what we see. They act as witness to the centuries and visitors which have gone before to shape the landscape as we see it today, merely its present custodians before generations of later viewers take our place and change it in their turn.