Nearly three decades after Derek Jarman passed away due to an AIDS-related illness, London’s Studio West Gallery is celebrating the renowned artist, activist and filmmaker’s legacy. Using Prospect Cottage as a starting point – Jarman’s picturesque oasis amid the harsh terrain of Romney Marsh in Dungeness – Studio West invited six London-based artists to trace Jarman’s footsteps and create their own body of work in response to his brilliance.

Titled Gardening on Borrowed Time, the multidisciplinary exhibition brings together works of painting, sculpture and film crafted from time spent delving through Jarman’s sprawling archive of journals, films, and photographs collected amid an enigmatic life of unbridled creativity.

Alfie Rouy’s free-flowing paintings translate the energy of dreamlike surrealism in hazy forms and swirling colours while Nic Sanderson’s sculptures seek inspiration from Jarman’s own sculptural practice to articulate themes of grief, loss and memory. Camilla Bliss immortalises the seemingly eternal garden of Prospect Cottage with a series of playfully tactile floral forms, meanwhile, Charlie Boothright and Xiaochi Dong both present abstract pieces tapping into the auteur’s 1993 static film Blue, meditating on his loss of sight. The only artist to explore the medium of film, Billy Sassi harks back to Jarman’s own experimental work on a Super 8 camera in a multicoloured, theatrically silent film featuring a lone mask-wearing figure.

Using the apocalyptic, wild connotations of Romney Marsh as a catalyst for creative expression, Gardening on Borrowed Time successfully twists expectations in a manner akin to Jarman’s trailblazing output, delivering a showcase honouring the beauty of the British icon’s countryside sanctuary.

Gardening on Borrowed Time will run at Studio West from September 21st – October 20th, more info here.