Out Here at Castlefield Gallery

At a time when environmental questions can feel overwhelmingly abstract, Out Here at Castlefield Gallery draws attention back to the ground beneath our feet – to natural materials in which histories, politics and possibility are held.

The exhibition draws together six North-based artists at different stages in their careers, whose practices entail going out into nature or working directly with natural materials. The work of Ashleigh Beattie, Shezad Dawood, Emelia Hewitt, Steve Sutton, Adam Rawlinson and Keziah Thomas-Mellor spans drawing, film, painting, sculpture, photography and performance. Across these different approaches, a shared concern emerges: how human and non-human worlds meet, overlap and shape one another.

For some, that relationship is materially embedded in the work itself. Ashleigh Beattie covers sections of the gallery with clay dug from her Manchester garden. Originally from Zimbabwe, Beattie uses this material to connect questions of belonging, displacement and the consequences of colonial crop production. Emelia Hewitt produces photographic works using plant-based processes and natural dyes, treating the natural world as both subject and substance.

Internationally renowned artist Shezad Dawood returns to Castlefield Gallery with Episode 7: Africana, Ken Bugul & Nemo, part of his long-running Leviathan project. Moving through Senegalese landscapes, the film blends documentary and speculative fiction. It imagines future selves looking back, opening out onto questions of ecology, migration and decolonial practice. Adam Rawlinson’s large-scale abstract paintings are informed by his close study of lichens as well as aerial and satellite imagery – overlapping the minute and the monumental.

Steve Sutton works with found natural materials – fallen trees, beach pebbles and animal remains – shaped by a longstanding physical relationship with the land through years of farm work. Keziah Thomas-Mellor’s practice draws on experiences of walking and climbing, translating them into drawings and sculpture. Her coffee-lid landscapes, installed high in the gallery and viewed through binoculars, bring questions of access and attention into the frame.

Across the exhibition, six artists bring complex ideas into physical form, placing the natural world – and our relationship with it – right in front of us.