KELSO.- Mellerstain House announces XXX by Steve Messam, the inaugural exhibition of Borders Sculpture Park. This stunning new venue for contemporary open-air sculpture sits within the grounds of one of Scotland’s most outstanding examples of 18th century architecture.

XXX comprises three remarkable, large-scale, inflatable installations by acclaimed artist Steve Messam. Curated with Sarah Coulson of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, each artwork creates a dialogue with the surrounding environment, disrupting and transforming the way we perceive it. This exciting project brings high quality, engaging and innovative contemporary art to the Scottish Borders; within the classical setting of Mellerstain’s William and Robert Adam-designed house and Sir Reginald Blomfield designed gardens.

Steve Messam’s site-specific works explore a sense of space, presence and place, combining historic features with bold, contemporary sculptural practice on a vast scale. The largest artwork in the series, Scattered provides a visually arresting centrepiece on the ornamental lake at the bottom of the great lawn. Pointed and Towered are installed in ruins hidden in secluded glades, and must be discovered on a walk through the grounds. All white in colour, the three extraordinary forms are a contemporary echo of the marble sculptures that were originally envisaged to adorn the gardens.

By integrating inflatable, fabric sculptures very directly into the buildings and landscape of Mellerstain, Messam seeks to uncover some of the many layers of narrative bound up in this magnificent estate. In doing so he establishes a lively dialogue between past and present, adding an unexpected and temporary new dimension to familiar vistas and architecture.

Scattered, a series of spheres that appear to float like huge, opaque bubbles on the surface of the lake, punctuates one of the most known and impressive views of Mellerstain - a sweeping line from the main house across to the Hundy Mundy folly on the horizon - offering new views and perspectives. Up to four metres in diameter, these pure white shapes disrupt the wide-open space of the water and play with its scale, surface and light, bringing a sense of scale to the landscape.

Pointed sits within the former gatehouse and Pekingese stud and fills the void of the building, extending out from the long absent pitched roof that the inflatable form itself mimics. From this re-imagined roofline 28 dynamic, elongated peaks rise over three metres into the air, reminiscent of a starburst or a stylized explosion frozen in time. Towered emerges from the curved walls of the ruin of the old laundry near the beck, its column-like forms standing over eight metres high. Though the two buildings appear to be follies in a state of partial ruin, they did originally serve a purpose. Some mystery surrounds their precise use at certain times, though, and Messam extends this uncertain history with new narratives, playing with their inherent sense of magic.

Steve Messam, the artist, comments: “In the use of historical buildings and the designed landscape, XXX draws on the architectural significance of both the rare complete Robert Adam house and the historically important Sir Reginald Blomfield redesigned gardens at Mellerstain. As interventions, the sculptures speak the language of scale - all three are bigger than a house. As studies in scale and form, these artworks have to be directly experienced in the environment to be fully appreciated, so I hope they will encourage even more people to visit this wonderful architectural gem in the Scottish Borders“