Prepare to be dazzled at Kew Gardens in May.
Things are beginning to look up at the moment, with the country slowly but surely making its way out of lockdown. Last week, outdoor hospitality was permitted to return and by May 17, if all goes to plan, other indoor activities–including exhibitions–will make their return. Colour us excited! [Featured Image: Designed by Andrew Parker 2017 © Lifescaped].
With everything looker a little sunnier, why not mark your return to art exhibitions by viewing one that boasts the “brightest colours ever”? As you come face-to-face with the exhibition “Naturally Brilliant Colour”, your eyes will feel as though their being tricked. And that’s all thanks to the team of scientific researchers at Lifescaped giving us the most vivid appearance of any colour.
Visitors are to be immersed in kaleidoscopic patterns, created in a lab using the same methods that naturally gives some living organisms– from butterflies and hummingbirds to rare plants and beetle shells–their shimmering colours. The way these microscopic patterns reflect sunlight is what makes them the brightest colours around. The technology, known as Pure Structural Colour, that recreates this is at the heart of the Naturally Brilliant Colour exhibition at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in Kew Gardens.
Alongside the brightest colours ever and the giant kaleidoscope, attendees will go on a journey of learning about vision and colour that dates back over 500 million years! Plus, the exhibition displays other artwork from botanical artist Robert John Thornton (1768-1837) as well as from award-winning contemporary botanical artist Julia Trickey. Coral G Guest is also debuting the world’s “first botanical artwork to accurately reproduce natural structural colour”. She made this piece through mixing Pure Structural Colour with paint.
Andrew Parker, director of Lifescaped, said: “Scientists have sought to reproduce the brightest, metallic-like colours of nature for decades. It is something special to witness these colours as they emerge from our machines – the brightest colours ever seen.”
While we can never truly rely on the weather brightening up our lives here in London, this exhibition certainly sounds like a water-tight way of ensuring just that. “Naturally Brilliant Colour” runs in Kew Gardens from May 17-September 26, 2021. Access to the exhibition will be included in the price of entry to the gardens. Find out all you need to know and book your entry here.