Artists and creators are often inspired by deep time but may not have done extensive geological research or engaged with the Earth science community. So it is pleasing to encounter the work of Katie Paterson.
Ground rock provides the materials. A first glance reveals colours like soil: mostly brown, black and grey, perhaps underwhelming and anonymous. But these are more than pigments. The provenance, labels and narrative text open the imagination to the formation of the Earth and the evolution - and extinction - of life.
Requiem (2022) tells of the birth and life of our planet in a single object hosting a layering of 364 samples from pre-solar times to today. I visited Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh twice. First, a reconnaissance to take in the scope of the work. Second, a return a month later when I was honoured to pour sample 199 - a moving experience. This was from 30 million years ago (near the start of the Oligocene epoch) as the Earth cooled and polar caps formed while Antarctica was separated from other continents A further 165 remaining samples taking us to the more vivid colours of the Anthropocene (be it epoch or event), stretched out along the shelves to be added in the days thereafter. The text from geologist Jan Zalasiewicz and photos in the accompanying book provide a wonderful record for those not able to directly experience the work. In a way it is sad to think of the empty sample glasses at the end of the project. The final product was fired in a kiln at the National Glass Centre giving ‘An urn built to house the ashes of future earth’.
The exhibition also included Endling (2022), a one metre diameter circle divided into one hundred sections, each painted with samples from different times. The earliest Earth begins at ‘12 o’clock’ and the segments take us in one image through the history of the planet, with black streaks from coal deposits standing out as markers.
I saw ‘〇’ (2023-2025) in May 2025 at the Expanding Landscapes exhibition put on by Lakeland Arts at Abbot Hall, Kendal. It was wonderful for us to meet and chat with Katie at the opening event. Each circular painting has its own geological story and pigment, including salts left from dried-up oceans and a mixture of materials from the interior of the Earth. These offer offer ‘…a sensory experience of deep time’ ‘encapsulating the very forces that have shaped our world’.
These works impress not only with the vision of artistic creation, but also with the scale and scope of project management and collaboration required to realise them.
Katie’s work provides a focus for reflection on how small our human span has been in the life of our amazing planet - and how the Earth will, in the long term, survive and thrive (even if our species doesn’t).
Visiting ‘Requiem’ at Ingleby gallery, Edinburgh, 26 May 2022
Endling (2022)
〇 V VI IX (2022-2025) at ‘Expanding Landscapes’, Abbot Hall, Kendall , Lakeland Arts, 16 May 2025
Katie Paterson
https://katiepaterson.org/
Requiem (2022)
https://katiepaterson.org/artwork/requiem/
Requiem (2022) Text by Jan Zalasiewicz
https://katiepaterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Requiem_Newspaper.pdf
Endling (2022)
https://katiepaterson.org/artwork/endling/
〇 (2022-2025)
https://katiepaterson.org/artwork/o/