SYNTHESIS | IAN GARLANT
Exhibition Dates: Thursday 17 November to Saturday 17 December 201
Private View: 6.00pm to 9.00pm Wednesday 16 November 2011
Location – Andipa Gallery – www.andipa.com
Curator – Sophia Stovall
Andipa Contemporary is delighted to announce SYNTHESIS, a new selling exhibition by internationally renowned couturier turned artist, Ian Garlant. On show at Andipa Contemporary,Knightsbridge, from 17 November to Saturday 17 December 2011 and during an exclusive event at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in London. Swapping the glamour of haute couture and the catwalk to become the fur clad artist braving -25°C Norwegian winters to create his incendiary art work, Ian Garlant returns to London.
His prolific imagination first manifested itself over a prestigious 20 year career in the fashion industry culminating in his role as Creative Director for Hardy Amies. His designs were exhibited at Victoria & Albert Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts; he designed costumes for the world 
famous Bolshoi ballet and was the couturier of choice for Royalty and celebrities worldwide.
This was merely the first step in his creative journey.Garlant abandoned the materialism and glamour of the fashion world and, in 2009, returned to his roots in a small Norwegian community, Hartlestrand in the Hardanger fjord. Here he found his inspiration in the wilderness, power and immensity of the landscape.
Garlant has dug deep within himself and used his intellect to identify purpose and meaning – fusing it into his work. Harnessing his remarkable creative force, Garlant has synthesised fire, earth and belief to construct works that will endure as long as the thoughts they represent. He has stripped away the pretty, the materialistic and the comforting to focus on the fundamental fabric and philosophies of life. His method is that of the alchemist. It requires complete immersion in the landscape. Choosing one of the thousands of caves around the fjord to work in, he retreats fur-clad into it. He mixes the elements around him – the sand, stone, desiccated wood and water. Once 
the pain and boat-building foam are poured, thrown or applied the whole piece is ignited. This catalytic moment determines the physican nature of the final work. It is the point at which the artist cedes control to chance and to nature.
Kay Saatchi curated his first highly successful solo show in London in 2010. Entitled Unearth, Garlentpresented his abstract, commanding and mysterious artworks made in response to the work of Norwegian poet Olav H Hauge (1908-1994). Kay Saatchi comments, “I am excited by the new body of work that Ian is bringing to Andipa Contemporary for his solo show SYNTHESIS. This work is thoughtful, dramatic and strongly visceral; it appeals to both our natural and philosophical sides. His originality and eccentric aesthetics are sure to impress. “
On his return to Norway, Garlant discovered that archaeologists had retrieved a piece of ancient wood from the ashes of a fire in Bergen which burnt down a historic building in 1955. It bore the inscription in runic letters “love conquers all; let us yield to love”. This is a citation from the Ecologues by the Latin poet Virgil who died in c. 19 BC, long before the words were inscribed in Norway in 1248. Inspired by the words themselves and their resonance across millennia and across civilizations, Garlant decided to build an installation incorporating this and other runes, the work to be conceived as a gift to the artist’s antecedents, the community and to the Norwegian landscape herself, to be called
BERGTATT I HARDANGER / ENTRACED IN HARDANGER.
Eva Attramadal
November 17, 2011
It does not get better than this.