23 March – 17 June 2018
Powerful Tides: 400 Years of Chatham and the Sea is not only a celebration of the artists inspired by The Dockyard and the ships that were built there, but also links The Dockyard back to the waterways and the sea to which it was once intrinsically connected.
The exhibition reflects how Chatham impacted key artists between the 18th and 20th centuries – names such as John Constable, J.M.W Turner, William Wyllie, Norman Wilkinson and Eric Ravilious – inspired by the engineering wonders created at the Royal Dockyard at Chatham.
The contemporary works included in the exhibition provide a link to the present – how the River Medway, Thames Estuary and the North Sea – all important routes to the dockyard in its past, still inspire artists today. Nadav Kander’s reflections on the River Medway and the Thames Estuary; Christiane Baumgartner’s photogravures of the Medway’s banks and river; Catherine Yass’ lightbox of the Thames at low tide and Nikolaj Larsen’s extended film portrait of the Thames, all reflect visually on the river, its banks, bridges and its constantly changing surface. Some artists such as Langlands & Bell explore the play on words of names of Chatham-built ships and the world’s waterways, others such as Yinka Shonibare MBE (RA) refer both to British colonialism and its expansion in trade and Empire. Richard Wilson’s
Ships Opera references sail, steam and diesel, Layla Curtis’
Message in a Bottle from Ramsgate to the Chatham Islands refers to time and tide, while Tracey Emin’s neon enigmatically glows in the exhibition space.
Including work by Layla Curtis, Tracey Emin, Nadav Kander, Anselm Kiefer, Steffi Klenz, Langlands & Bell, Nikolaj Larsen, Yinka Shonibare, Richard Wilson and Catherine Yass