The Curatorial Backlogs #7 : All the Flowers are For Me

Artist : Anila Quayyum Agha  

Show : All the Flowers Are For Me 

Location : Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, Kew Gardens : London, England

Date Seen: 14 April 2023

Price: Included with Entry Admissions to Kew Gardens 

Run Time: 1 April 2023 - 17 September 2023

Sponsors:

Curators:

“Build your own stories. The title All the Flowers Are for Me means if you’re walking around here, it’s for you.”

– Anila Quayyum Agha

This show consists of three pieces - All the Flowers Are for Me alongside Stolen Moments I and Stolen Moments II. The works utilize botanical motifs paired with imagery found in Islamic art and architecture. The pieces explore the use of light and shadow projection. The pieces showcase patterns of flowers and plants which have been laser-cut into 1.5m thick pieces of steel and placed with light coming from behind/inside to emit immense shadows.  The shadows are projected onto brightly colored walls. The works reflect Agha’s experience of growing up as a Pakistani woman in the U.S.A. 

Notes:

• All the Flowers Are for Me is a stunning installation piece. It is a turquoise laser cut cube suspended in the middle of the large gallery room at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in Kew Gardens. While the sculpture itself is one thing, the piece in its entirety takes up the full space through the shadows that are projected on the walls. The walls are bright red, very much contrasting the turquoise cube in the center. Shadows are produced based on the design of the cube because of the set of lights inside the center of the cube. My main complaint about this space is that the entrance to the rest of the gallery should have been closed off to create an even more all encompassing space. Instead of this, the doorway was open and showcased a bright lime green hallway which was jarring and felt out of place in the calming and all consuming space Agha had created. Instead of leaving the entrance as an open doorway to a bright green hall they could have added a red curtain to close off the space, or even painted the walls a less distracting color. 

• Stolen Moments I and II are works found in the spaces/hallways leading up to the main piece (All the Flowers Are for Me). They offer a glimpse as to what to expect as they are also metal pieces that produce grand shadows. These pieces are also projected onto bright colored walls (green and yellow). 

• Outside of this exhibition, throughout the rest of the gallery spaces are botanical drawings and paintings by other artists. The works all have the common themes of plant materials. The works are clearly chosen due to the botanical nature of their subject matter and are well situated in the setting of Kew Gardens because of this.