Overview
Jeffrey Gibson presents 'House of Spirits', as part of 'Queer Nature', a festival celebrating the diversity and beauty of queer plants and fungi in the Temperate House at Kew Gardens.
At the centre of the Temperate House Gibson presents 'House of Spirits', an immersive installation fusing vibrant colour and pattern. The artist draws upon his Choctaw-Cherokee heritage as well as queer theory, politics and art history as part of his multi-disciplinary practice, and similar themes are explored in his new commission for Kew.
This large-scale, suspended artwork is intricately crafted to form a collage of printed fabrics, incorporating previously unseen botanical illustrations alongside language and patterns informed by Gibson’s own perspectives on queerness, and the endless diversity of plants and nature. This new artwork, receiving its world premiere at Kew, also draws inspiration from the work and life of artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman, who was a renowned as a stage designer, gardener and gay rights activist.
The exhibition also features a film installation by Adam Nathaniel Furman and a new garden designed by Patrick Featherstone, both in collaboration with local and LGBTQ communities.
