“I don’t force joyousness or positivity to come through my work,” says Rana Begum. “But I am naturally drawn to things that… illuminate.” The artist – who is known for the way she dynamically deploys light, colour and form to blend sculpture, architecture and painting – is taking a moment in her north London studio to talk about her prolific practice.
Throughout this minimalist labyrinth of concrete, timber and glass are tactile treasures such as a tumbling pile of wire-mesh orbs painted in fruit-sorbet shades and pallets of shimmering spray-painted relief panels, while shelves hold archival records of the vast, vibrant body of work that has shaped the Royal Academician’s reputation for versatility and impact. Highlights include a set of chevrons that zigzagged through a King’s Cross square and a rainbow prismatic set in the Foreign Office for Roksanda Ilincic’s A/W 22 show. She’s in the midst of a solo presentation at Kate MacGarry Gallery (which runs until 26 October) and has just completed her cloud commission for Pallant House.
In one serene, airy corner, where Begum has just been playing around with a work-in-progress installation for Tiffany & Co, I witness first-hand the spirit of experimentation and collaboration that runs throughout her practice. Shoppers passing Selfridges this month may be stopped in their tracks, as they register the 20 dazzling new window displays: the famous storefront has been taken over by the jeweller to celebrate glorious examples of its artistic heritage and visual merchandising from its sparkling history, alongside new commissions by Begum, Damien Hirst, Jason Bruges and the musician James Righton.
Begum has been busy building a dialogue with pieces by the late Italian visionary Elsa Peretti – in particular, her 1970 Bone Cuff – an undulating, contoured and iconic design that wraps around the wrist. “Elsa’s work is bodily and organic; in mine, I’m thinking about symmetry, repetition, geometry,” she says. “Her designs fit around you; I’m often forcing the viewer to move and bend around mine. But what we have in common is use of light – I connected with the way the embedded diamonds and the gold refract it.”
Begum has chosen to celebrate both these differences and similarities: she has created a concertina screen formed of blue, yellow and white reflective rectangular tiles arranged in a pattern of stripes and spikes, that offers a striking foil to the curves of the jewellery in front. Mirror panels bookending each side create an optical illusion of a shifting surface that disappears into infinity – literally and metaphorically mirroring the light bouncing off both Begum and Peretti’s designs. The artist explains this while she cuts out a folded paper model, finally holding it up to a small palm-sized mirror, and I immediately see what she means – it is kaleidoscopic, and demands your focus. Thanks to the way light coming through the window will evolve throughout the day – at dawn or dusk, from streetlamps, night traffic, midday sun or through autumn fog - it will be an ever-changing, ever-responding window display.
The idea of it being an immersive experience for the viewer is vital to Begum, because of the physical response she had when trying on Peretti’s cuff, a visceral reaction she hopes to echo with the display. “I love the way it feels, moulded to your wrist – I always want the body to be able to connect with my work,” she says. “There’s huge pleasure to be found when your skin reacts to something around you. That’s the kind of fleeting, connected moment I want to capture. It can have a ripple effect on the rest of the day.” Depending on their walking speed, their direction of travel, the coat colours of fellow pedestrians, each of the 130,000 people who pass the Selfridges windows every day will perceive her window differently – a wonderfully large-scale example of the interplay Begum loves to see between human movement and her work.
“It always comes back to heightening your senses,” she says of what she ultimately hopes to achieve with the project. “The way colour and light, working together, can give you goosebumps – and [make you] that bit more aware of the world around you.”
Rana Begum’s artwork ‘No. 1403 Reflectors’ (2024) for Tiffany & Co is at Selfridges. For more information on Begum’s work, visit ranabegum.com
