Nanbei
- Artist:
- Type: Painting
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Production Date: 2013
- Description: During a series of visits to China, between 2010 and 2013, Edinburgh based artist, Kate Downie, was brought into contact with traditional ink painting techniques, but also with the China of today. There she encountered the contrasts and meeting points between the epic industrial and epic romantic landscapes: the motorways, rivers, cityscapes and geology - all of which she has absorbed and reflected on in a series of oil and ink paintings. As Downie creates studies for her paintings in situ, she is very much immersed in the landscapes that she is responding to and reflecting on.
This piece, NanBei, tackles similar themes to Downie‘s Scottish based work, reflecting both her interest in the urban landscape and also the edges where land meets water. Here we encounter both aspects within a new setting ‘ an industrial Chinese landscape set by the edge of a vast river. Downie is also obsessed with bridges. As well as the bridge that appears in this image, seemingly supported by trees that follow its line, the space depicted forms an unseen bridge between two worlds and two extremes, between epic natural and epic industrial forms. In this imagined landscape north meets south and mountains meet skyscrapers; here both natural and industrial structures dominate the landscape. This juxtaposition is one of the aspects of China that impressed the artist and inspired the resulting works.
A film of Kate Downie sketching the three bridges over the Firth of Forth can be seen here
https://www.youtube.com/watch‘v=L_jNE95RpSY&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0jScYPLNv9NCYlids-BgDq6GkOIUUGsTNeSqP3kFXFVMcEtAlcjbsR7WQ - Acquisition Note: Purchased with support from the (NFA) National Fund for Acquisitions.
- Digital Copy:A digital copy exists.
- Location: Store
- Related Material: AC/AF/D/9
- Accession Number: 2013.11
- Contact: University of Stirling Art Collection
