LONDON.- Anthropocene (from the Greek anthropo – ‘man’, and cene –‘new’) is the name used to denote the proposed new geological era due to supersede the current Holocene epoch as a formal scientific recognition of the prevailing and irrevocable impact of human life on earth.

Both artists share an interest in the changing face of the environment and humanity’s effect on the planet and present, shown alongside each other for the first time, works reflecting this everpressing issue.

Angela Palmer is a recognised Scottish artist whose work explores the notion of ‘mapping’. She has worked with subjects as diverse as the internal architecture of the human brain and the wider geography of the planet.

To mark the advent of the Anthropocene, Palmer has created a 'spine' of rocks, sourced from the length and breadth of Britain, allowing us to take a 3000 million year walk through our nation’s geological history. The artist’s sculptural timeline starts with the most ancient 3 billion year old rocks found in North West Scotland and span every geological period up to the Ice Age. Through the sequence of rocks, we are propelled from our country’s origin in the Southern Hemisphere - where Scotland and Northern Ireland were separated from England and Wales by the Iapatus Ocean - to our merging as a nation as we slowly drifted northwards, across the Equator, and towards our current location in the Northern Hemisphere.


The rocks have been polished on one side - exposing for the first time the magnificent 'underbelly' of Britain in a complete geological sequence - while on the reverse the stones have been left rough, as we may encounter them in the landscape today. The final, 17th element represents the Anthropocene, a ‘rock-like’ sculpture created by Palmer in mirror polished steel, to reflect the onlooker.

Janet Laurence is a renowned Australian installation artist and photographer, whose work examines the impact of mankind on the threatened natural world. Laurence is in residence in Paris for the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21) where she presents Deep Breathing, a body of work that relates to the impact of human activity on the World Heritage Great Barrier Reef, looking at the consequences of global warming and human activity on the marine world. The work is comprised of an installation currently located at the entrance of Grande Galerie de l’Evolution at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, an accompanying video displayed at the Tropical Aquarium of Palais de la Porte Dorée, and photographs and collages to be presented at The Fine Art Society.

Angela Palmer (b. 1957) was born in Scotland and based in Oxford. The artist studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford and the Royal College of Art in London. Her work is found in a number of prominent private collections including Renault Art Collection, H.H Sheikha Salama Hamden Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, Welcome Trust, Lawrence Graff Royal Bank of Scotland and The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Angela has executed a number of significant public and corporate installations including Brain of the Artist, National Portrait Gallery of Scotland (2014), Searching for Goldilocks, Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, Washington (2013), Egyptian Child Mummy, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (2012), and Ghost Forest, exhibited in Trafalgar Square, London, Oxford and Copenhagen (2012). Future exhibitions include From Rembrandt to the Selfie at the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland and Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, 2016.

Janet Laurence (b.1947) lives and works in Sydney Australia. Laurence exhibits internationally with recent shows in Sydney, Hong Kong and London and has been represented widely in major curated and survey exhibitions including After Eden, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney (2012); Negotiating This World (2012) in recent years. She has executed a number of significant commissioned works including The Australian War Memorial (in collaboration with TZG Architects), Hyde Park, London; Tarkine for a World in Need of Wilderness Macquarie Bank, London, In the Shadow, Sydney 2000 Olympic Park; Waterveil, CH2 Building for Melbourne City Council, Elixir, and Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan. Her work is housed in collections such as National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; AGNSW, Sydney; NGV, Melbourne; QAG, Brisbane; AGSA, Adelaide; Artbank Australia Macquarie Bank Collection, Kunstwerk Summlung Klein, Germany. Her work is also in a number of universities, corporate and private collections nationally and internationally. Future exhibitions include Novartis Campus: Sculpture and Medicinal Garden, Sydney (2016) and Inside the Flower, IGA, Berlin (2017).