‘Imaging the Rustic and the Wilderness: The landscape sketch in nineteenth century Britain and America.’

The title of China Academy of Art’s 2017 international exhibition of emerging artists: the Inter-Youth exhibition was ‘Art. Letter Home’ and it was largely concerned with the sketch, sketchbook, drawing and artist manuscript. The exhibition was held at the Nanshan campus gallery, Hangzhou and featured work by Wimbledon graduates Indianna Farrell (BA Painting) and Laura Wend (MA Drawing). The exhibition included work from emerging artists and students from the UK, China, Germany, Australia and the USA. There is an accompanying catalogue.

The show was accompanied by a symposium on the theme of the sketch, sketchbook, drawing and artist manuscript. Geraint Evans presented a paper titled: ‘Imaging the Rustic and the Wilderness: The landscape sketch in nineteenth century Britain and America.’ In this paper Evans considered how drawing and the oil sketch reflected and shaped the shifting socio-political landscape at a time of great change.

There were also contributions from Brigit Brandis from University of Fine Arts, Hamburg; Allison Alder and Ruth Waller from the Australian National University, Canberra; Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow from the School of Visual Arts, New York; Sheng Wei from the China Academy of Art. Later, the Belgian curator Joël Benzakin and artists Lionel Esteve, Lucia Bru and Michel Francois spoke about their exhibition ‘Drawing as Art, Art as Drawings’, which runs alongside the Inter-Youth show. This show includes work by Anish Kapoor, Neo Rausch, Daniel Buren. The symposium ended with a panel discussion with me, Brigit Brandis, Ruth Waller, Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow, Allison Alder and tutors from CAA Cui Xiaojian, Jiao Xiaojian and Li Qing on the subject of the different approaches taken to teaching and learning at our various colleges.