An exhibition of works observing flora, woodlands, wildlife, skies, marshes, and islands – artists’ books, printed poetry and ephemera. Whether you can be out in the landscape and the sun is shining near you, or you just need to see something lovely from indoors, we have a display of inspirational works by artists, writers and poets that can hopefully lift your spirits or give better insights into the layers and textures of the world surrounding us. From daily, observational pencil studies of individual flowers, to poetic works on landscape, to collaging green spaces into being or composing image, text and sound in relation to place, there are many ways we can find to enter these spaces.

Artists and writers in this exhibition include:
Andrew Norris, Astra Papachristodoulou, Catherine Cronin, Cathey Webb, Chrystal Cherniwchan, Colin Sackett, Corinne Welch, Csilla Bíro, Elizabeth Willow, Gordon Yapp, George Gibson, Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, Graeme Hobbs, Greg Thomas | Oo Press, Helen Douglas, Hidekazu Konishi, Imi Maufe, Ioulia Akhmadeeva, Jane Hyslop, Jean McEwan, Jeff Rathermel, Julie Johnstone, Keiichi Nakamura, Kurt Johannessen, Laura Crehuet Berman & Owen Bullock, Laurie Clark, Leonard McDermid, Lucy May Schofield, Marian Kilpatrick, Nancy Campbell, Nancy Gaffield & The Drift, Pirrip Press, Roelof Bakker, Sarah Nicholls, Stanley Miller, Stevie Ronnie & Tessa Bunney, Tracey Bush.

Wealden by Nancy Gaffield and The Drift. The marshes, shingle, and dense woodlands of southern Kent are the settings of Wealden, a collaborative work by Nancy Gaffield and The Drift. The poems and music were composed in tandem, mapping this extraordinary landscape, from the marshland of the High Weald down to the coast at Dungeness. Wealden deals with the strata – geological, cultural and historical – that have been laid down over the course of one brief millennium, and considers the imminence of the sea reclaiming it all.
You can read an interview with Nancy Gaffield and The Drift about the ‘Wealden’ project here. And find more information on the book here.

Jane Hyslop’s The Intelligence of the Flowers. “Inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1907 book of the same name, this book contains extracted texts that sit alongside pochoir prints created as responses to the writer’s evocative descriptions of the life of flowers.” More information here.

All The Sunflowers, Roelof Bakker, 2025. “A set of seven postcards of photographs showing two editions merged back to front of Roelof Bakker’s 2021 book All The Sunflowers, creating unexpected configurations of the seven sunflowers paintings painted by Vincent van Gogh at Arles, France, 1888-1889. All The Sunflowers is an ongoing experiment in erasure and appropriation as well an investigation into the sculptural qualities of a book and the possibility of a book to take on unexpected new life forms.” More information here.

The Movements from understanding to smiling forests by Kurt Johannessen, 2022, “book no. 3 in The Untold series of picture books. This series has grown out of The Transparent series, where the book titles and the visual content created a new space. Now the natural elements have been replaced with a journey of colour. The books are printed in riso. This means that all the pages in the books have a more organic expression. Numbered edition, maximum 80.” Read more here.

A set of bookmarks, letterpress printed by Graeme Hobbs, “featuring seasonal poems from eighth century Japan, paired with apposite images, with those for Spring and Autumn given a dab of painted floral colour. The poems are from the oldest extant collection of Japanese poems, the Man’yoshu.” More information and images here.

St Cyrus/Saunt Ceerus by Chrystal Cherniwchan: “This little book was made between 2017-18, and is quite simply an ode to St Cyrus, Scotland. This is an exercise in responding to place, a space to explore memory through poetic visual fragments.” More information and images here. You can also listen to some sound pieces by Chrystal Cherniwchan here.

Julie Johnstone’s flowers is a small concertina book named after the titles of paintings by Agnes Martin, 2023. “The central focus of my practice recently has been working to build a body of book works and poem-objects inspired by the painter Agnes Martin.” Get your copy here.

Jean McEwan’s zine We got your back is a collection of collages “exploring relationships and interconnections between human and more than human life. All proceeds from the zine are being donated to Animal Equality, who campaign and advocate for the protection and respect of farmed animals worldwide.” Get your copy here.

Looking for green, remaining hopeful, Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, 2024. Provided the inspiration and title for this exhibition: “We search the map for big green shapes to head towards. Sometimes these irregular shapes turn out to be less green upon arrival. Sometimes they are golf courses and cultivated lawns. Sometimes they get smaller, the closer we get.

In finding the reality of the mapped green shape to be ill-fitting, we cut the scenario anew and make a more befitting visual effect upon the green screen. This series of ten analogue postcard collages, with a green area like that on a map, mirrors our own longing for green spaces to head towards, and a filmic green screen on which a potential environment more suited for a motley assortment of birds could sprout.” Read more here.

Alongside making art, Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison are “Tiny but Wild, a licensed DEECA wildlife shelter based, like our studio, in our home in North Fitzroy, Melbourne / Naarm.” Find out more and donate if you wish, here.

This exhibition is open to the public Monday – Friday 9am-5pm. No booking needed. The library is on the first floor of B block. Public parking on meters on main road or at Ashton Court.

For more information on Bower Ashton Library, visitor access and campus map, see the library website.

UWE Bristol, City Campus at Bower Ashton, Kennel Lodge Road, Bristol BS3 2JT.