The smooth, finely grained and soft rock alabaster is relatively easy to carve and allows the light to shine through it so that its grain and texture can be celebrated.  Much prized by the Egyptians in the making of canopic jars and other objects for burials, it was used for windows in Byzantine and Medieval churches in Italy (and by Bernini in St Peter’s Cathedral in Rome) and, in the 2oth century, became popular with artists including Henry Moore, Anish Kapoor, Eduardo Chillida and Isamu Noguchi for work which could be both soft and sharp in form, while allowing the character of the original material to shine through.  It is also a very architectural material, used for religious sculpture and altars in many churches.

2000 years of artistry in alabaster is demonstrated at Ordovas’ gallery, while a few streets away at S|2, the sculptural work of Singaporean-born Kim Lim from around 1959 to 1997, similarly celebrates the texture and grain of natural materials – in this case stone and timber – at with her sculptures beautifully spotlit in a darkened environment, as if in a dark cave or a shrine.