LONDON.- The Royal Academy of Arts Artists’ Laboratory 03 features previously unseen drawings and sketches by Nigel Hall RA. Hall is best known for his pure geometric abstract sculptures and drawings, which show a preoccupation with space and volume. This exhibition will contain over one hundred works and will reveal a less familiar side of his work and practice. The display showcases a selection of landscape sketches, inspired by his global travels including works drawn in Australia, Italy, Japan, Switzerland and the USA.

Gallery 1, the Large Weston Room, will feature his Swiss landscapes: inspired by Hall’s annual visits to the Engadine in Switzerland and made over a period of two decades. The mountains, local architecture and landscape provide a platform to explore the understanding of space and distance. Other works on display include sculptural drawings, preparatory sculpture sketches, new gouache and charcoal drawings and a new sculpture.

Gallery 2, the Small Weston Room, comprised of drawings and sketches inspired by nature. This includes various subject matters including a study of a single oak tree and its cycle of growth, an Italian manhole cover, storm damage and ice lakes. In addition broader sketch book material are displayed featuring works made during Hall’s travels, including early American desert works from the beginning of his career, Australian desert drawings and sketches made in Japan.

Hall says: My work has always been about place. I am fascinated by the way geometry can be discerned in landscape, and my preferred landscapes are mountains or the desert. Works in the exhibition are for sale.

Nigel Hall RA was born in Bristol in 1943. He studied at the West of England College of Art, Bristol and at the Royal College of Art, London. A Harkness Fellowship took him to the United States from 1967 to 1969. Hall’s work has featured in many exhibitions around the world; recent exhibitions include Annely Juda Fine Art, London, City Arts Centre, Oklahoma, USA, Park Ryu Sook Gallery, Seoul and retrospective at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. His work is also held in public and private collections including Tate Gallery, London, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia and Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Japan. His first tubular aluminum sculpture was made in 1970. In subsequent years Hall has developed spatial sculptures in various materials including wood, bronze and Corten steel and has explored scale from the intimate to the grand. Nigel Hall was elected Sculptor RA in March 2003.