In Conversation

Max Porter, whose acclaimed novels include Grief is a Thing with Feathers and Lanny, is a highly imaginative and poetic writer who relishes in the capacity of language both as a vehicle for storytelling and as textural form equivalent to an impasto brushstroke. His last novel The Death of Francis Bacon, abstractly envisions the painter’s final days in a convent hospital in Madrid, translating Bacon’s intense visual language into hypnotic, masterfully written vignettes.

Through his adventures and many books, Robert Macfarlane has continually fathomed the depths of the systems that connect living beings with the land – exploring everything from mountains to catacombs to ask a central question – in the words of Jonas Salk – Are we being good ancestors? Macfarlane has stated: ‘for nearly two decades I have been writing about the relationships of landscape and the human heart.’

At the centre of Nigel Cooke’s artistic practice is a fascination with the way information travels from the brain, through the body and nervous system, onto the canvas and back again. His work is a philosophical examination of the ways in which consciousness and subconsciousness interact to create a painting. Where Macfarlane’s work is rooted in physical exploration and Porter’s novels begin with a drawing, Cooke’s artworks begin with a vivid, often unexpected, encounter with wildlife.

Despite varied practices and interests, all three panellists are concerned with what is to find meaning through our relationship to the landscape and how art might provide a space to ask questions and mine for answers.