Sculptor Nicholas Rena is Deep in the Green Lilac Park at London's Browse and Darby

Exhibition: Nicholas Rena – Deep in the Green Lilac Park, Browse and Darby, London, until November 2 2012

Colourful sculptures from the former Jerwood Prize installation creator, with works titled from the TS Eliot poem, Ash Wednesday, in a show named after a Leonard Cohen song.

Rena has made 20 pieces from this show, with deep greens, rich reds and purples leading to top floor billing for bright yellows and lilacs in a set of typically monumental, thickly-crafted vessels in luminous colours.

“For those of us making a certain type of ceramic vessel, one of the central metaphors in such work, which is perhaps too obvious to state, is that these vessels are empty,” he explains.

“They are empty because they refer to traditions of use that are almost lost, such as baptism, anointment, invocation, and blessing, where man and the material world fused.”

He names Rothko and Matisse’s approaches to colour as inpsirations, and says the pieces relate to longing, appearing to reach up towards heaven or the sun.

• Browse and Darby, Cork Street, London. Open 10am-5.30pm (11am-2pm Saturday, closed Sunday). Admission free. Visit www.nicholasrena.com.

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