Solo exhibition by post-war British landscape painter Yasmin David (1939- 2009).
Although Yasmin exhibited briefly at the Mall Galleries early in her career, after marrying, moving to Devon and raising a family, she chose not to exhibit publicly. Yet over more than fifty years, Yasmin created a deeply personal, luminous body of work, largely unseen during her lifetime.
The works remained hidden for decades. After her death, her daughter, filmmaker Clio David, discovered hundreds of previously unknown paintings, drawings, notebooks and poetry — material which has since been brought to light through exhibitions, archiving and scholarly work.
Yasmin David (1929-2009) lived and worked in South Devon for over fifty years. Her work explores the particular light and landscape near her home on the edge of Dartmoor. One of the few women working in landscape during the post-war period, David produced paintings which are both intimate and dramatic, emotional and turbulent, capturing the molten qualities of sky and land. They directly reference the unique relationship between the painter and the land.
“The notion of ‘experience’ is key in the post-war period, as the artist’s engagement with landscape is seen as embodied: they appear to live within and amongst the landscape and become fully immersed in it, in a physical, bodily sense. The material and conceptual layering in David’s work, and her personal, evocative journaling of her daily experience, align her work with this interpretation.” Dr Sophie Hatchwell (Art Historian and Lecturer, University of Birmingham)
Artwork credits: © Yasmin David, Untitled 1 and 2
