“The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

First Circle: Circles in Art takes an expansive view of the recurrence of circles in art in the last 100 years. Although the works included belong to Modern and Contemporary art, the exhibition considers how the longer history of this symbolic shape influenced practitioners of the 20th and 21st century. From Anish Kapoor to Franz Kline, Richard Pousette-Dart to Suh Se Ok, the exhibition crosses the globe to showcase this ever-present geometry.

The exhibition opens with the quote by one of the United States’ first philosophers, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The quote captures the power of the circle and its place – not just within nature but that nature within us. There is no distinction between the natural world and humans. We should see the dignity and possibilities within ourselves and others. It is not a static condition but a dynamic process

Circles are all around us and within us. It is nature at its most balanced and harmonic. From globes to clocks, from the celestial music of the spheres to the sun and planets, circles have formed and inspired artists for centuries. Even in the rapid change of the 20th and 21st century, artists turned to the circle to find new meaning and new symbolism joining themselves to millennia of history.