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Garden by Tania Kovats

Tania Kovats 'Garden' series explores the metaphors of illness, specifically in relation to AIDS and cancer and the myths that surround these diseases.  Kovats spent two years compiling research at St Pancras and the Royal London Hospital. From this research she became interested in the relationship between flowers and illnesses. For centuries, if not millennia we have used flowers in rituals such as bringing bouquets to the sick and placing wreaths on coffins. Flowers consequently symbolise life and death, the lily representing death and the anemone, Christ's blood in Christian symbolism.

Kovat's conceived these flower vessels as a memorial garden for the patients at St Pancras and the Royal London Hospital. Their suspension in the resin, like the cryonic vessels in Oddy's work, freezes their life of the plants, giving them in ones imagination, the potential to grow and flower. The six vessels contain flower bulbs which resemble body parts or tumours. But their names, given in the titles My Love, Pink Perfection parody the aesthetic ugliness of the pieces and hint at the beauty of the flowers which emerge from them. The remaining two works Herb Garden and Chinese Medicine initially appear to contain human remains or cells. The resin distorts the seeds in Herb Garden in the same way cells appear when enlarged under a microscope. But instead these contain plant extracts used to heal the body.

Herb Garden by Tania Kovats © Tania Kovats Commission by Public Art Development Trust

These sculptural pieces set up confrontations between the clinical and the spiritual, the ugly and the beautiful, the arcane and the futuristic, between hope and despair.

Tania Kovats (born 1966) studied at Newcastle Polytechnic and then at the Royal College of Art. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout Europe and the States, where she currently lives. Exhibitions include: the British Council Touring Show Landscape; At Sea at Tate Liverpool; and Slip at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. She has also received a number of awards including two Art for Architecture Awards.

This work was purchased with support from The Wellcome Trust.

1+1=1 by Jordan Baseman
Set Conversation Piece by Christine Borland
The Last Supper by Damien Hirst
Dying is Not Good For You by Jason Oddy
Silence by Lyndall Phelps
“I” by Alexa Wright
Sick Sticks by Laura Glassar
Garden by Tania Kovats
Inhaler and Crack Bottles by Keith Coventry
Catherine Long by Marc Quinn