An engulfing cloud of lilac drifts through a shifting dark sky - an image that captures the essence of Leila Bartell’s upcoming exhibition, Memory Fields. In this latest body of work, Bartell uses moving cloudscapes to mirror the instability of the natural world around us, emphasising the transient and unpredictable nature of both landscape and memory. Drawing on a tradition deeply rooted in landscape painting, she re-imagines the genre through a contemporary lens, exploring how our perception of nature adapts amid an ever-changing environment.
At the heart of this series is a direct engagement with the legacy of John Constable, particularly his iconic skies. While Constable sought to capture a timeless, idealised vision of the English landscape, Bartell reinterprets this tradition through the lens of contemporary experience. She disrupts Constable’s romantic, pastoral serenity by introducing elements that speak to the instability of the present. Acidic yellows and synthetic greens shock the skies in an attempt to evoke digital interference, atmospheric distortion, or ecological imbalance. These chromatic intrusions reflect how digital technologies and climate anxieties affect our perception of the natural world.
These colours serve as a metaphor for how our collective image of nature is increasingly shaped by screens or digital representations, rather than authentic, sensory interactions with the world around us. Bartell’s work does not simply update Constable’s skies; it interrogates what it means to look at the sky today, in a world where our connection to nature is so distant.
In a moment defined by environmental instability, climate change, and the rise of digital technologies, Memory Fields addresses the profound shift in how we experience nature today. The clouds and landscapes depicted here are not just representations of the world as it is, but reflections of how nature is increasingly affected, altered, and even threatened. As we grapple with the instability of the present moment, Bartell’s work challenges us to reconsider the ways in which we engage with the world around us and to reflect on how our perceptions of nature have been reshaped by the complexities of modern life.