LONDON.- Pitzhanger’s new solo exhibition by Rana Begum RA explores the perception of light, colour and form within sculpture, painting and installation. Visitors immediately encounter a newly-created, ethereal cloud installation of diffused light and veils of colour dramatically suspended within the Gallery. Dappled Light blurs the boundaries between sculpture, architecture, design and painting. It is Begum's first solo show in a public gallery in London in six years.

Dappled Light sets up a dynamic dialogue with the architecture of Sir John Soane at Pitzhanger. The works respond to the Manor’s architecture, sightlines, and intricate interior decorative schemes, including his play of light through tinted glass. Panes of coloured glass rise from the ground in Pitzhanger's front garden, their vibrant shadows shifting the sun. Several works are displayed beyond the Gallery around the Manor including a bright neon installation of fluid form that zig-zags across the Georgian stairwell. Begum’s architectural cityscape of reflector towers interplays with Soane’s own use of columns of brightly coloured stained glass in the Conservatory.

On display is a monumental canvas of colourful dots that appear random with no underlying structural pattern. This faces a tile grid of vividly coloured undulating surfaces that shimmer in the shifting natural light that floods into the Gallery. Throughout the exhibition, paintings, sculpture and installation are juxtaposed playing with how light touches the material: filtering, glancing, reflecting and blending.

A new piece, Begum’s first video work, captures the fugitive and dappled light as it cascades through a tree canopy in a woodland cemetery outside the artist’s city home. The time-lapse video cycles through the seasons during a year of lockdown. This piece is displayed in Pitzhanger’s atmospheric Monk’s Dining Room designed by Soane, evoking the Gothic environs of the cemetery.

Rana Begum has collaborated with a group of local young artists from Bollo Brook Studios, the creative arm of Bollo Brook Youth Centre (who curated a previous exhibition at Pitzhanger) to create a monochromatic wall drawing, composed with thumb prints, that will welcome the visitor as they arrive in the Gallery.

Clare Gough, Director of Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery, says: “We are thrilled to be showing Rana Begum’s striking works which will create an exciting sensorial experience for our visitors. Begum’s exploration of shifting light, colour and form will connect magnificently to the use of light as an architectural tool by Pitzhanger’s architect Sir John Soane.”

Rana Begum said: "I’m excited to see how these works change and develop in relation to the new spaces they inhabit. At Pitzhanger, the works will be shown in the house and the gallery - spaces that will force the work to adapt and change their forms. Both the new and existing works respond directly to the way Soane designed the house, bringing light into the architecture."

Rana Begum is a Bangladeshi-born artist who lives and works in London. Her work draws on a range of influences, from the geometric patterns of traditional Islamic art, to the visual language of Minimalism and Constructivism and urban landscapes.

This exhibition is in partnership with Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre. Catching Colour by Rana Begum is a new site-specific outdoor public sculpture for London City Island that will be unveiled on 9 April 2022. Rana Begum is Co-Curator of the architecture space at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, opening on 22 June.

Rana Begum: Dappled Light is curated by Dr Cliff Lauson, Director of Exhibitions at Somerset House.