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Rashid Khalifa: Penumbra: Textured Shadow, Coloured Light at the Saatchi Gallery

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Time 11:00
Date 03/10/18
Price Free

An exhibition bringing together new three-dimensional works. Rashid's London debut invites the viewer to experience the beauty of textured shadows & light cast through polychromatic metal structures.

Running from: Wed 3 - Sun 21 Oct.

Aluminium mesh wall works, suspended steel grid columns housing videos of street scenes, and a monumental maze form the basis of this immersive exhibition inspired by architectural grids and geometric lattices.

In recent years, Rashid has experimented with metal surfaces, creating openings in his aluminium wall works and revealing the intimate space behind the surface, usually kept out of view. Penumbra takes this approach a step further, exploring changes in spatial experience depending on the viewer's position.

Upon entering the first exhibition space, the audience encounters convex wall works adorned with colourful flaps that suggest a feeling of movement. Rashid refers to the wall-mounted aluminium pieces, whose intricate patterns are based on complex mathematical geometric design, as 'parametric sculptures.' In the centre of the room, three-tiered columns wreathed with geometric flaps, cutouts and monitors showing street scenes and coastlines are suspended from the ceiling, drawing the viewer closer. There is tension created between the vibrant and ornate steel grids and the calmness of the voids within, just out of reach of the viewer in a realm of semi-privacy.

In the second exhibition space, the viewer is confronted with a colourful maze and a colossal grid structure that reimagines the shapes and tones of an urban environment, and explores architecture, city planning and memories. Rashid comments: 'I was inspired by winding narrow alleyways and traditional architecture. I would like the audience to experience the maze as a conceptual entity - a spiritual journey with no fixed destination.'

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