For a dozen glorious spring days, three Oxfordshire-based artists and a film-maker exhibited their art at the renowned Knepp Rewilding Project. Lisa Curtis (painter), Lizzie Wheeler (printmaker), Emily Malden (filmmaker) and James Ort (sculptor - who runs the Phoenix Studio in Towersey) exhibited alongside 10 other artists. The exhibition, called Inspired By Knepp, showed individual artworks that celebrate the rewilding movement, and aimed to reconnect its visitors to the wider landscape and its wild inhabitants. Proceeds from the artworks sold was split between the artists and the Knepp Wildland Foundation. During the event, as well as the various works on display including paintings, sculptures,
drawings, and printmaking, there were also a series of workshops and demonstrations to allow members of the public to connect with their creative sides, as well as with nature. Knepp was the first major rewilding project in England. What was, up until 2020, intensively farmed arable and dairy land, is now a transformed landscape thrumming with wildlife. Many rare species can be found there including turtle doves, nightingales, cuckoos, barbastelle bats and the purple emperor butterflies that you may have seen in David Attenborough’s Wild Isles series. It also pioneered the release of white storks and the first beavers living wild in Sussex for 400 years. Knepp really hit the public consciousness with the release of the book, ‘Wilding’. An instant lockdown hit, Isabella Tree’s moving account of their pioneering conversion back to nature, showed the nation how it is possible to restore and heal our broken landscape. Nature is in crisis everywhere, especially in the UK. We are one of the most bio-depleted countries in the world, but we are all reliant on nature. We cannot exist without it, and yet there is a huge disconnect between us and nature. For the artists involved, Knepp is a symbol of hope for how humankind could live in greater harmony with the natural world. The beauty of art is that it can make us see the world differently. It can show us what we may take for granted, in a dazzling new light. A large percentage of art sales will go to the Knepp Wildland Foundation, a charity that aims to galvanise nature recovery across Sussex and contribute to reversing our biodiversity crisis. Further information can be found here. | 
