Ian Berry returns to Hampstead for his fourth solo exhibition with Catto Gallery. This much-anticipated show features a new body of work entitled Hotel California, with each piece crafted out of denim in fine detail.
Since his last London show, Behind Closed Doors, Berry has spent a lot of time showing his work, from Miami and New York, across France, to his hometown of London, where he turned a Soho storefront into a Record Store installation and Selfridges & Co on Oxford Street. However, it was his trip to California, when he went to San Francisco to do a giant installation of the hanging garden trellis, that left a big impact on Berry. In the trip, he took in the scenery and culture of San Francisco and Los Angeles, and it was the lights and pools there that got Berry’s attention.
"I loved the Behind Closed Doors body of work, both conceptually and technically. It was a show that really worked because it was my own mindset at the time. I was really moved by how it connected with so many people. The colors were quite dark, however, and I wanted to do the next show with bright denim. Something that I don’t think people know about my work is the challenge I set on the manner in which light hits things. Like the tiles of the hallway floor, the metallic rows of washing machines in a launderette or a shiny polished bar top."––Ian Berry
Hotel California is a technical mastery of Berry's ability to create light hitting ripples in the water, a reflection of palm trees and hotel in the pool, and bubbles from a swimmer. Berry stayed at The Roosevelt, famed as the first venue of the Oscars and rumored to have the ghost of Marilyn, with a certain artist painting the floor of the pool in his iconic style – David Hockney. Berry featured the hotel pool in a number of pieces, along with the Mondrian and the Standard.
While in California, Berry had a song in his head, and while the working title became his own show's title, he fully knows the lyrics aren’t really about a hotel in California. That said, he recreated the album cover from the Eagles 1977 hit, which does indeed picture the Beverly Hills Hotel. To connect the show, Berry will have a part of the Record Store installation to complement the Hotel California album cover. He will also be installing the famed Secret Garden for the first time in London.
Ian Berry's "Hotel California" opens at the Catto Gallery in London on July 1, 2019, and is on display through July 28, 2019.
