Ian Berry returns to the Catto Gallery in Hampstead for his fourth solo exhibition with the London Gallery. With previous exhibitions selling out this much anticipated show brings the East London based artist back with a new body of work titled Hotel California with all the work of course being crafted with much detail out of denim.

Since his last London Show, Behind Closed Doors, Ian has spent a lot of time traveling showing his work, from Miami, Kentucky and New York, in the states across France as well as his hometown London where he turned a Soho store front in to a Record Store installation and Selfridges & Co on Oxford Street. It was his trip to California that left a big impact on Ian however, when he went to San Francisco to do a giant installation of the hanging garden trellis, that will hang permanently in the city known as the modern home of the jean.

The title piece of the Show, Hotel California by the Eagles

In the trip he took in both San Fran as well as LA and it was the light and the pools there that got Ian’s attention.

Ian says ‘I loved the Behind Closed Doors body of work both conceptually and technically it was a show that really worked, it was also my own mindset at the time. I was really moved how it connected with so many people. It was quite dark however, and I wanted to do the next show with bright denim. Something that I don’t think people know about my work beside it being made of jeans is the challenge I set of how to look at how light hits things. Like the tiles of the hallway floor, the metallic rows of washing machines in a launderette or a shiny polished bar top.’

In Hotel California it is a technical mastery of how Ian has managed to get the light hitting the ripples in the water, the reflection of palm trees and hotel in the pool, and the bubbles from a swimmer underwater. Ian stayed at the Roosevelt, famed as the first venue of the Oscars, rumored to have the ghost of Marilyn and also, a certain artist painted the floor of the pool in his iconic style. David Hockney. Ian featured the hotel pool in a number of pieces, along with the Mondrian and the Standard.

While in California, Ian forever had a song in his head, and while the working title became the shows title he fully knows the lyrics aren’t really about a hotel in California, that said he recreates the album cover from the Eagles 1977 hit, that does picture the Beverly Hills Hotel.

To connect the show, Ian will have a part of the Record Store installation that will compliment the Hotel California album cover. He will also be installing the famed Secret Garden for the first time in London, come and see his work in real life at the Catto Gallery and see how he adapts the garden to the space.