For Frieze Sculpture Park 2024, Pi Artworks will present Albano Hernandez’s sculpture, The Shadow. Created by the artist using non-toxic, water based grass paint, Hernandez will hand paint a life-size silhouette of one of The Regent’s Parks magisterial trees directly onto the grass itself. The work will appear as if it is a real, physical shadow. Associations with ideas of the natural world vs. the synthetic, with Plato’s cave, and with shadows across art-history, will ensure that the work re-defines the sculpture park’s landscape, asking visitors to look closer at their surroundings.
The Shadow’s form will be dependent on its positioning within the park, as Hernandez will base its appearance on a tree species that is close to the plot site. As a work, it is intrinsically tied to nature and the environment, and as Albano’s practice often looks towards Axis Mundi and the connection between different realms, we see ideas of industrial materials combining with nature here. His work incorporates waste and reflects a sustainable cycle of art-making, so this large-scale project sees his aim through to fruition, with the work ultimately being transient and reliant on the growth of the natural materials it is made from.
