Flora: 150 Years of Environmental Change in Cornwall – curated by Kurt Jackson

In the curation of this exhibition, Jackson focused on the botanical as represented by the Newlyn School – selecting paintings with flora, plant matter and local habitats depicted as setting, background or subject and, through meticulous research, pin-pointed the original vantage points. For Jackson, these became places to visit and study and sometimes to make his own works to illustrate the changes and processes that have occurred in the last 100 years or so; an opportunity to demonstrate both losses and gains within the plant world.

Jackson says “Fortunately, in Cornwall there are corners and edges where nature has survived, and when permitted, thrives. There are still a few small family farms where quality reigns over quantity. There are organic, regenerative and conservation-minded people, those involved in rewilding and organisations working for Cornwall’s environment. We can still find the tiny fields, the Cornish hedges, the bogs and marshes, the plethora of wildflowers, the wild. Cornwall’s heart and soul.”