Laura Aldridge

Indirect Sunlight – Laura Aldridge & James Rigler
Now Gallery, London
13/07 – 23/09/2018 *solo

This exhibition blurs the boundary indoors and outdoors, Indirect Sunlight will see NOW Gallery populated with a series of playful sculptures. Arched forms derived from monastery cloisters and clipped topiary will provide a lightweight modular structure from which colourful and patterned printed fabric will hang. These arches will be carefully placed throughout the space and visitors will be encouraged to move freely through the sculptures, causing the fabric to respond to their movement. Small, golden ceramic elements will dot the arched structures like fruits or budding blossom and as visitors venture further, a ceramic water fountain will be revealed.

The dreamlike quality of the fountain will be in opposition to a series of functional benches and work tables installed throughout the exhibition. These will house materials for visitors to evolve the installation – to pot up plants, to sow seeds and to place their seedlings within the landscape of the ‘garden’. The activity of planting will bring a new dimension to the gallery, transforming the space into an inside garden where visitors will be able to contribute to the metaphorical garden space with its fluttering arches and ceramic objects.

Light flooding into the space through the glass walls will be harnessed to spur new life, with seedlings breaking through the soil and leaves unfurling. These plants will grow and develop throughout the exhibition, bringing it to life as nature infiltrates the space. There will be the opportunity to examine the seeds of plants as beans, peas, sunflowers and nasturtiums and become a part of an ongoing growing project. The greenery will take over the space, courgettes growing across the floor, peas climbing up the arches. Visitors will have the opportunity to dip their hands into soil, get grounded and understand the nature of how a garden grows.

Taking inspiration from the rich history of Greenwich Peninsula, Aldridge and Rigler have drawn elements from their local surroundings to enrich the contextual narrative of the exhibition. Areas of marshland and heavy industry that once characterised much of the South Bank of the Thames are now being revitalized by the Greenwich Peninsula regeneration project. This sense of revitalisation is evident in Indirect Sunlight, capturing the starting point of the garden as a creative site.

Aldridge and Rigler hope to introduce a sense of wellbeing and discovery by creating both a metaphorical and physical garden that appeals to the senses – the sound of water, the smell of the earth and the rustle of vibrant fabric in the light breeze. The sense of refuge and recovery that embody memorial gardens, romantic landscapes and even the humble allotment will be plentiful within the sculptural language of Indirect Sunlight.