Constructed Nature Hugo Dalton

HUGO DALTON CONSTRUCTED NATURE

INTRODUCTION

Hugo Dalton was commissioned by the Royal Horticultural Society to create a work for the 2011 Chelsea Flower Show. The monumental twenty-four meter long canvas was hand painted and plays on the juxtaposition between the constructed nature of the flower show and the perceived permanence of the show gardens.

The drawings for Constructed Nature were made from life in two very different locations, which exist almost side-by-side in close proximity to the site of the Chelsea Flower Show. The first is the National Army Museum, where the artist focused on the two cannons displayed outside the Museum. The second was the Chelsea Physic Garden, founded in 1673, the garden is a testament to mankind’s reliance on the natural world’s capacity to heal. For the Dalton these two locations and their polar opposite displays provided the perfect ingredients for his first work on canvas, and as such represents a major development in his artist career.

Dalton is well known for his wall paintings and illuminated drawings. He has created a stage set for Sadler’s Wells in London, painted the walls of the iconic store Barneys in New York and has had solo shows at the Today Art Museum, Beijing and the Fine Art Society, London. He also makes works on a domestic scale and his collectors include Kay Saatchi, Anthony de Rothschild and Sam Parker Bowles and the David Roberts Foundation.