La Foresta II 1971 - 1972

Curator: Graham Sutherland's "La Foresta II" from 1972 presents us with a compelling, if somewhat unsettling, landscape. Editor: Unsettling is right. Those looming shapes feel like distorted figures, all eyes and gnarled forms emerging from the dark. Curator: Sutherland's engagement with the natural world was deeply shaped by the socio-political climate of his time. The war, the threat of industrialization... Editor: It's as if the forest is morphing, becoming something monstrous. Those eye-like shapes, are they watching us, or are they the forest itself, seeing its own decay? Curator: Perhaps both. Sutherland was fascinated by the hidden life of the landscape, and the way it reflected the anxieties of the modern world. Editor: It’s a powerful reminder that nature, while beautiful, can also be a site of profound unease and transformation. Curator: Indeed. Sutherland gives us a new way to consider the forest and our place within it.