Jeremy Gardiner: Strata - Dr Judith LeGrove

Strata, a series of 20 paintings on poplar panel and 80 on handmade paper by landscape artist Jeremy Gardiner (b.1957), celebrates the Jurassic Coast on the 25th anniversary of its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Gardiner has studied this coast for decades, constantly developing techniques to depict its changing textures. He revisited twenty locations every year from 2018 to 2022, painting in different seasons and weather conditions. Just as landfalls alter the coast, Gardiner combined subtractive and additive processes, cutting, scraping and chiselling, marbling, pouring, distressing, sanding then repainting the works’ surfaces to reflect the passage of geological time. The resulting paintings break new ground through their conceptual rigour and assimilation of techniques informed by science, geomorphology and digital mapping. At a time when Earth’s environment is increasingly threatened, Strata provides a record of this unique, precious coastline.