18th July 2025 - 18th August 2025
Preview: Friday 18th July 17:30 onwards, all welcome!
Cornish artist Esme Lansdowne presents ‘A Soft Landing’, a new body of work created during a transformative chapter of returning to her homeland of Cornwall and entering motherhood. The exhibition marks both a creative and personal homecoming – a full- circle moment shaped by early artistic influences, deep emotional roots, and an evolving relationship with the land she calls home.
Created amidst the quiet intensity of early motherhood, these works reflect a shifting sense of time, identity, and place. Drawing on her material-led practice, Lansdowne uses natural earth pigments sourced from the Cornish landscape to create abstract works that respond to the elemental forces and textures of place. These works are reflections on belonging and the grounding pull of home. Raised in St Ives and shaped by the legacy of artists like Barbara Hepworth and Peter Lanyon, Lansdowne continues this lineage of experimentation and deep connection to material and landscape. After years of travel and exploration, she returns to Cornwall to raise her family and create work that weaves together the inspirations gathered along the way. ‘A Soft Landing’ invites viewers into an emotional and sensory engagement with the land. A place where past and present converge, and where the gestures of paint and pigment become offerings to heritage, motherhood, and the notion of home. It is an invitation to pause, reflect, and land softly. An emerging artist with a growing reputation, Esme has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Her most recent exhibition, ‘Intertwined Narratives’ showing at TwentySix Gallery, Wellington, marks her debut in New Zealand and features works created during her residency at Driving Creek Pottery in the Coromandel. Her work has been featured at galleries such as Anima Mundi in St. Ives and the Tyler Gallery in Mousehole. Esme’s practice reflects her commitment to the land and the stories it holds, creating art that resonates with a sense of history and connection. The Young Penwith Artist programme was created in 2022 to run annually to support young artists based in Cornwall, by providing the artists with a funded exhibition in our studio gallery during our Associates Summer Exhibition. It’s a fantastic opportunity for artists aged 35 and under to submit work and engage with the gallery as a professional artist to create their own show. The exhibition is completely funded by the Penwith Society of Arts, with the goal of the programme to create stronger connections with younger artists based in Cornwall.
