When Ian was invited to take part in the Saatchi Gallery’s Textile Art Redefined exhibition in the spring of 2026, he wanted to push the work further. With the show in London, he began looking for ways to weave the city itself into the piece. He had taken the installation across the world, launching in New York at the Children’s Museum of the Arts in 2017, and to many countries, always developing more layers of secrets, but now, he was coming home.

During his research, he came across Ranelagh Gardens, a once-famous pleasure garden located not far from where the Saatchi Gallery now stands. In its heyday, the gardens hosted lavish masquerade balls, where guests wore masks as they moved through carefully staged social spaces.

The balls were a fantastical world of freedom, where people of all classes and proclivities mixed, hidden behind masks. There they could be themselves.

The detail intrigued him. The mask felt symbolic; of performance and concealment, reflecting a version of himself he had presented to the world for the first 39 years of his life.

The International Gay Rights Congress was held in Edinburgh in December 1974 and formally recognised the lambda as the symbol for lesbian and gay activism. Seen here made into the patterns on the leaves. So, he decided to bring masks into the garden.

Further research led to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, Ranelagh’s rival, and one of the leading venues for public entertainment in London from the 1660s to 1859, and the site of what is often cited as the first recorded drag performances. According to historical accounts, John Cooper of the Strand - or rather his alter ego, Princess Serafina - visited the exclusive Ridotto al Fresco café on June 7, 1732, in a pink calico gown, mob-cap and smock, to the bemusement of the other patrons.

Inspired by these masquerade balls and the unusual characters who attended them - often dressed as Greek or Roman mythological figures - Ian began to consider how these costumes could also represent queer identities, from Apollo and Sappho to Alexander the Great. He wove these references into the work, introducing figures such as Pan, the Green Man, alongside others dressed in peacock and wolf costumes. The garden became populated with characters that felt both historical and symbolic - part mythology, part coded narrative. Look closely towards the back, and Oscar Wilde can be seen dancing, with his green carnation, while Princess Serafina sits to the right, with the now long-vanished Vauxhall Gardens stretching out behind her.

He added them into a tiled wall using patterns reminiscent of Delft pottery, Portuguese azulejos (decorative ceramic tiles), and those seen in Ottoman Empire design and were transfixed by the wall, convinced the tiles were actually ceramic and not intricately cut patches of denim. Did their marvel at the craftsmanship distract from some looking even further and thinking, what is going on here?

They have certainly asked ‘what is the green flower signifying’? and those that know, know.

Ian also created his own mask, leaving it cast to one side, as if abandoned after a night of celebration - a quiet trace of presence, identity, and release.