A Soft Landing is a new body of work by Esme Lansdowne coming to the Penwith Gallery this summer. It was created during a transformative chapter of returning to her homeland of Cornwall and entering motherhood.
Artist Esme Lansdowne
The exhibition marks both a creative and personal homecoming — a full- circle moment shaped by early artistic influences, deep emotional roots, and an evolving relationship with the land she calls home. Created amid the quiet intensity of early motherhood, these works reflect a shifting sense of time, identity, and place. Drawing on her material-led practice, Esme uses natural earth pigments sourced from the Cornish landscape to create abstract works that respond to the elemental forces and textures of place. These works are reflections on belonging and the grounding pull of home.
Raised in St Ives and shaped by the legacy of artists like Barbara Hepworth and Peter Lanyon, Esme continues this lineage of experimentation and deep connection to material and landscape. After years of travel and exploration, she returns to Cornwall to raise her family and create work that weaves together the inspirations gathered along the way.
A Soft Landing invites viewers into an emotional and sensory engagement with the land. A place where past and present converge, and where the gestures of paint and pigment become offerings to heritage, motherhood, and the notion of home. It is an invitation to pause, reflect, and land softly.
An emerging artist with a growing reputation, Esme has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Her most recent exhibition, Intertwined Narratives, showing at TwentySix Gallery, Wellington, marks her debut in New Zealand and features works created during her residency at Driving Creek Pottery in the Coromandel. Her work has been featured at galleries such as Anima Mundi in St Ives and the Tyler Gallery in Mousehole.
Esme’s practice reflects her commitment to the land and the stories it holds, creating art that resonates with a sense of history and connection. A Soft Landing opens at the Penwith Gallery on 18th July and runs until 18th August.
Penwith Gallery | Back Road West, St Ives TR26 1NL | penwithgallery.com
