Kew Gardens exhibition explores changing landscape of Botany Bay

The new Jan Hendrix exhibition, which was announced in December 2019 to run in the  the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, will now open on 3 October 2020.

Paradise Lost is an exhibition from Dutch-born, Mexico-based visual artist Jan Hendrix and will be the artist’s first UK solo exhibition.

In the show, the artist will respond to the transformation of a landscape known as Botany Bay in Sydney, Australia. Botany Bay once teemed with flora and fauna and acquired its name thanks to the number of plants that were recorded and collected there in 1770 by European botanists sailing on the HMS Endeavor.

Two hundred and fifty years on, the landscape of Botany Bay has been replaced by Sydney suburbs.

Work will include a monochrome tapestry evoking the dynamic texture and beauty of an Australian landscape. A mirrored pavilion will form the centrepiece of the show and a series of silkscreen prints on silver leaf will also be exhibited.

Maria Devaney, galleries and exhibitions leader at Kew said: “This incredible exhibition by Jan Hendrix will highlight the devastating impact that we have as human beings on the planet – by using the example of Botany Bay and how it was irrevocably changed after 1770.”

Hendrix has lived in Mexico City since 1978 and is currently working on the facade of a new Mexican Museum in San Francisco. In 2012, Hendrix was awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest Mexican award given to foreigners for his work in art and architecture. In 2019 he was made a Knight of the Order of Oranje-Nassau by the Royal House of the Netherlands.

Originally the exhibition was due to run in April, but was postponed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. It will now open on 3 October 2020 and run to 14 March 2021.