Frieze Sculpture Park : London | Albano Hernandez

For Frieze Sculpture Park 2024, Pi Artworks will present Albano Hernandez’s sculpture, The Shadow. Created by the artist using water-based paint, the life-size (24.5 x 8m) silhouette sits directly on the grass itself, appearing as a real, physical, shadow. Dubbed a ‘living painting’ that will move and grow with its environment, Hernandez plays into his ongoing interest in manipulation of materiality, creating a cerebral reflection of the sculpture park that speaks to a wider ecological issue.

Appearing as a genuine silhouette of the sweetgum tree (liquidambar styraciflua), a species that was first recorded by a 16th - century Spanish naturalist (also named Hernández), the work is, in reality, a universal ‘shadow’ cast by the impact of global deforestation. Inspired by the allegory of Plato’s Cave - in which prisoners in a cave believe the shadows they can see projected onto their surrounding walls constitute all of reality, the piece is also strongly informed by his life philosophy of zero waste and awareness of his ecological imprint. In his studio, the artist upcycles everything: with canvas offcuts and paint chips becoming new artworks. Responding to the invitation to make a new work with a playful twist in the English Gardens, he creates a sculpture that neither rises above the ground nor dents its surface.

Hernandez’s practice often looks towards Axis Mundi and the connection between natural resources and their commodification. His wider practice incorporates waste and reflects a sustainable cycle of art-making, so, as the artist’s largest work to date, The Shadow sees his aim through to fruition: the work is ultimately transient, reliant on the natural materials it is made from, growing alongside the grass.