Ottone’s Aria relates to Jeff Lowe’s new series of large scale sculptures which are shaped from curved sheets of aluminium, folded in and around each other, forming abstract circular structures. Cutting silhouettes into the aluminium sheets allows the viewer to look through the outer ‘skin’ to an intimate space within. These works explore volume, space and layering with architectural forms.

The title of his recent exhibition, In The Close Distance, encapsulates the sculptures which demand space and from afar appear as images, but as the viewer draws closer they become an experience. Although still maintaining an industrial quality that is synonymous with the artist who has historically since the 1970’s used heavy materials such as iron and steel with traditional welding techniques, these new works possess a playful lightness. In this series, Lowe has decided to leave the joining process visible, exposing the bolts where the sheets of metal have been attached, in turn the nuts and bolts become crucial to the sculptors’ visual language.

The exciting shifts in Lowe’s work that come together in this exhibition can be attributed in part to his move to the Lime Works in Faversham in 2015, a former Art Deco water-purification plant built in 1937. The house, which is constructed of two monumental cylindrical forms, has been restored by Lowe over the past three years, and is made up of living and working spaces where Lowe is influenced by the surrounding architecture and the rolling green landscape. The building’s interior earthy tones which draw on the artist’s love for the Algarve, and the circular forms of the house are echoed in Lowe’s sculptures.