The Challenger's Report

The first UK solo exhibition by Argentinian artist Irene Kopelman looks at how relationships to landscape and the natural world are culturally conditioned and subject to change.

Rooted in drawing in situ and guided by laboured processes of copying and re-production, Kopelman's practice reveals a fascination with landscape and the act of looking. Borrowing patterns from nature and techniques of observation and classification from the history of science, her drawing, painting and sculpture is characterised by imperfections that foreground the physical conditions of its making – cramped, dusty, rainy etc.

Inspired by the expeditions of renowned explorers such as Ernest Shackleton, her work is founded upon empirical research carried out in the field or in naturalist archives and collections. The Challenger's Report centres on how acts of looking are mediated by culture, invention or circumstance.

The title of the exhibition refers to the Challenger expedition of 1872-76, the discoveries of which laid the foundations of modern oceanography.

Gasworks