For ‘The Garden’, Ryan Hewett’s third solo exhibition with Unit London, the artist incorporated a myriad of geometric structures, depicting abstract figurative forms and isolated environments, drawing from human experience and the natural world.
The eponymous hero piece, The Garden, lends its name to the title of the exhibition and can be viewed as a starting point for the artist’s evolving exploration of multi-dimensional landscapes and complex layering. The new body of work retains the heavily vigorous textural quality of Hewett’s distinctive earlier practice, alongside a juxtaposition of flattened angular shapes that draws the viewers’ focus back to the materiality and technique of traditional painting.
This exhibition signalled a transition towards more ambitious large-scale painting thanks, in part, to Hewett’s move to a new studio space in his hometown of Cape Town in September 2017. The Garden is 2 x 3 m, the largest the artist has worked on to date, taking six months to complete.
Studio
Private View
Ahead of the exhibition opening, the private view of The Garden took place on Thursday, 28 June, a vibrant event with over 2000 RSVPs. Guests were queuing around the corner just to get a glimpse of Hewett’s paintings and to visit the newly opened space.
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