Katie Paterson ‘NOW’ Exhibition

In the first major showing of the artist’s work in a public institution in Scotland, the sixth and final exhibition in the NOW series highlights the work of Scottish artist Katie Paterson (b.1981). Born in Glasgow, and a graduate of Edinburgh College of Art and Slade School of Fine Art, London, Paterson is considered one of the leading artists of her generation. Her works are the result of long periods of research and involve collaboration with specialists in scientific and other fields in order to translate complex ideas into physical, often poetic works of art.

NOW delves into the theme of time. Paterson’s work explores deep time, the cosmos, and the place of humans in relation to these phenomena – ideas that have been central to the artist’s work for more than a decade. Among the works featured is Paterson’s mesmerising installation Totality (2016), a large - scale mirror ball created from almost all known images of solar eclipses captured by humankind, and Light Bulb to Simulate Moonlight (2008), held in National Galleries of Scotland’s collection. Also exploring the theme of time as part of NOW are artists Darren Almond, Shona Macnaughton and Lucy Raven.

In collaboration with the artist, Splintr were asked to design a lightbox that holds 2200 slides showing photos of the universe through time, for a piece called ‘History of Darkness’. This went through multiple design iterations with countless prototypes made. The end result was a nearly 6 metre long piece, with CNC cut acrylic face and a bent aluminium surround.