Rana Begum
(Picture: handout)If you’re anything like me, when you find yourself trotting around an exquisite stately home you’ll be the one sniffing “bit dark though innit” as you brush past painstakingly carved mouldings and elaborate wooden doors. Not, though, at Pitzhanger Manor, the country estate belonging to the late-18th century architect Sir John Soane, in Ealing. The ingenious way he draws light into each part of this surprisingly domestic-scale manor house is extraordinary, which is one reason why the London artist Rana Begum is such a brilliant choice to have a solo exhibition there, opening tomorrow.
“It’s amazing,” she enthuses over steak and chips around the corner from her purpose-built Stoke Newington studio, where the work for the show is being completed. “It’s beautiful. As you walk around, you feel like you’re constantly in the light. I wanted the work to respond to that.” She was also struck by the grace of Soane’s rooms, “how you move through the space. It’s quite interesting, there’s just a flow, it’s as if it’s never-ending.”
