Previous Exhibitions - Earth, Air, Sky & Water
Earth, Air, Sky & Water by Margaret Harrison
15 July -31October 2006
Two of J.M.W. Turner's greatest pictures of the Lake District are reinterpreted by the internationally acclaimed artist Margaret Harrison in this exhibition at the Wordsworth Trust's 3ºW contemporary art gallery.
One of the original Turners, Morning amongst the Coniston Fells, Cumberland (1798), is on loan to the Wordsworth Trust from the Tate for the duration of the 
exhibition, and can be seen in The Solitude of Mountains: Constable and the Lake District.
Earth, Air, Sky & Water runs from 16th July to 22nd October as part of the 'Summer of Landscape' at the Wordsworth Trust. Simultaneously, the Wordsworth Museum will hosts the major exhibition of John Constable's paintings and drawings from his Lake District tour in 1806 - The Solitude of Mountains: Constable and the Lake District - placing Turner's work in the context of another great artist of the era.
Harrison said: 'Turner, along with Wordsworth, was amongst the first to recognise and use this dark landscape, with flashes of moving light, illuminating the insides of our minds. We can't see the world that Turner saw, and we don't look at the Turner paintings the way he looked at them; there's a different context and the weight of history. These new paintings, about the place where I grew up, are a personal relationship, both with another artist called 'Turner', and with a place so familiarly represented. The challenge is in simply seeing it, not close to the Industrial Revolution as Turner was, but close to globalisation as it is occurring now.'
A catalogue to accompany the exhibition features essays from Judith Palmer and Pamela Woof, as well as an introduction from David Wilson, the Robert Woof Director of the Wordsworth Trust.
Margaret Harrison is presently Senior Research Professor, Faculty Art and Design, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. An artist with an international profile, her work is in several important public collections including the Tate, the V&A, Kunsthaus Zurich, the Arts Council of England and the University of California. She lectures and shows her work internationally, mainly in the United States, but also Germany, Holland, Austria, Australia and Canada. She is presently exhibiting at Taxispalais, Innsbruck, Austria (Arbeit/Homeworkers). Harrison's work will also be on show this year at the Beverley Knowles Gallery, London and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
