BRISTOL.- Coates & Scarry presents Vista, a group exhibition that brings together five contemporary artists exploring the notion of landscape and perspective. Beginning January 18th, Tamsin Relly, Nick Bright, Marcus Jeffries, Bronwen Sleigh, and Simone Fontana Reis will reimagine the concept of vantage points and vistas using a variety of mediums.

Showing a selection of recent painting, drawing, photography, print and sculpture, Vista aims to create a dialogue between various approaches to perspective. From Tamsin Relly’s ethereal oil paintings to Bronwen Sleigh’s architectural compositions, Vista presents alternative interpretations of the notion of landscape, that aim to redefine the genre for contemporary audiences.

Tamsin Relly’s body of work examines landscape through a political context, depicting changes to the natural world through her fluid and lyrical oil paintings. Drawing reference material from both found media imagery and first hand observations, Relly works with the fluid and unpredictable qualities of painting and printmaking to present impressions of urban and natural environments in states of uncertainty or impermanence.

Like Relly, Nick Bright’s photographs of abandoned objects in natural landscapes contain a palpable sense of loss or absence and address still life as well as the landscape tradition. His current practice incorporates both analogue and digital technologies to visually research, question and perhaps challenge established institutional spaces and contexts.

Marcus Jefferies’ works are composed of paired down geometric shapes, presenting new minimalist points of view. Jeffries maintains a diverse practice that incorporates model making techniques, painting, sculpture, installation and design. The built environment often forms a backdrop to his work where new narratives are made through the exploration of site, scale and memory.

Bronwen Sleigh’s works focus on the urban landscape, drawing on architecture and blueprints for her two-dimensional works. Sleigh’s pieces have a collage-like quality as they combine graphic, structural elements to suggest the changeability of the urban environment. Sleigh is a multi-disciplinary artist who takes inspiration from industrial architecture, unused and forgotten urban spaces, and environments at the edge of the city.

Simone Fontana Reis’ paintings have elements of abstraction and representation, where fragments of landscapes and figures are constructed into complex scenarios that seem to be in chaos. Trees, floorboards, curtains, demolition sites and building façades all feature in her works and each painting also typically contains within it a large abstract, almost alien-like, form. These strange additions transform the works into curious in-between places, neither real nor imagined.

Each artists’ own personal approach to the theme highlights the myriad ways that vantage points and vistas can be interpreted. Vista offers the unique opportunity to examine contemporary concepts of landscape and perspective through the works of Relly, Bright, Jefferies, Sleigh and Reis.