New York, NY – Leila Heller Gallery is delighted to announce the installation Black Palm by Douglas White at Frieze Sculpture in The Regent’s Park, London.
Black Palm is a monumental outdoor sculpture by Douglas White, rising approximately seven metres and constructed from reclaimed tyre rubber and steel. Installed within The Regent’s Park, the work transforms the familiar image of the palm tree into a meditation on movement, ecology, and the manufactured nature of urban landscapes. Composed of layered fragments of recycled tire rubber, the sculpture carries the physical traces of travel, erosion, and industrial use, turning discarded materials into a dynamic form. Rather than imitating the surrounding vegetation, Black Palm exists in dialogue with the park’s carefully maintained environment, drawing attention to the systems of “cultivation,” labor, and global exchange that shape contemporary public space. White’s use of reclaimed materials underscores themes of sustainability and environmental change, while elevating forgotten industrial remnants into something monumental and that feels alive. Exposed to shifting light, weather, and seasonal conditions, the sculpture continues to evolve over time, absorbing the atmosphere of its surroundings as part of its ongoing presence.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Douglas White (b. 1977, UK) is a sculptor known for transforming found materials into evocative, hybrid forms that challenge distinctions between the organic and industrial, the natural and the artificial. His work often explores the tension between decay and regeneration, drawing on themes of transformation, loss, and co-evolution. Driven by a fascination with discarded and overlooked materials and "finding something magical within the everyday" White's intuitive practice incorporates materials as diverse as blown-out truck tires and lightning-struck trees. The materials are often subject to violent transformations, revealing inner or unexpected surfaces, structures, aesthetics, and fragility. White’s practice, rooted in a tactile, poetic relationship with the found object, reveals a world where beauty is inseparable from destruction, and meaning arises from contradiction.