Image above: Re-visiting Loch Long from Glen Loin, 2012 © Chrystel Lebas
Don’t miss the last few weeks of Regarding Nature, a solo show of work by the acclaimed French landscape photographer Chrystel Lebas at London’s The Photographers’ Gallery. This exhibition showcases a selection of work from Lebas’ latest series Re-visiting, created in collaboration with The Natural History Museum, London, and will be on display in Print Sales Gallery to 5 August 2017.
Image above: Re-visiting – Ranunculus flammula, No plate, 2014 © Chrystel Lebas
The project responds to The Natural History Museum’s intriguing collection of unidentified glass plate photographs and field notes taken of the British Isles in the early 20th century. Lebas, along with the museum’s botanists Dr Mark Spencer and Kath Castillo, searched for the unknown photographer and uncovered him as the famed English botanist, ecologist and director of the Kew Gardens, Edward James Salisbury (1886–1978).
Captivated, Lebas followed in Salisbury’s footsteps, scouring areas of Scotland, Norfolk and Devon to find the exact locations where he would have stood to capture his images. Equipped with a notebook, GPS and various cameras, she meticulously documented the landscape and flora during her travels. In doing so, the artist reveals, in her own stylistic hand, the changes wrought by climate and man over the last 90 years.
Image above: Vitis-Idaea on remains of Pine bole, Plate no 1365, 2013 © Chrystel Lebas
Hauntingly beautiful, the series is still ongoing and is considered the artist’s most ambitious work to date. In breathtaking panoramic views, Lebas provides a complex impression of an apparently unspoilt landscape.
With this exhibition, Lebas presents 14 works from the original series.
The publication, Field Studies: Walking through Landscapes and Archives, which was published by FW: Books on the occasion of the Huis Marseille Museum 2017 exhibition will also be available at The Photographers’ Gallery Bookshop.
The competition is now closed