elemental
Jean Bishop Integrated Care Centre, Hull, 2019
Glass wall panels, textile banners and glass pyrography
The uplifting effects of nature and its positive influence on our health was the overarching theme for the series of artworks commissioned for the Jean Bishop Integrated Care Centre, Hull.
The four elements form the anchoring focus for the project. Air, Water, Fire and Earth are taken to represent our primal connection with nature. Links between each of the four elements and the local area from a historical or sociological perspective were also part of the design development process.
air
Linking with flight, I took the seabirds that use the Humber Estuary as the inspiration for a series of 6 chiffon banners. The designs took colours and feather patterns from a particular bird. The banners gently move in the air currents to create ever changing overlapping imagery.
earth
Plants from the area were the starting point for these artworks. A series of 5 glass panels was inspired by images of grasses and reeds, layered with stripes based on the views over the estuary. A series of monoprints were created using reeds collected from the estuary marshes.
water
The stripes and strata of the earth/water/air boundaries, the curves of the rivers, the wavy lines created by rivulets trickling through the mudflats as the tide recedes were the inspiration for the ‘water’ series of works. The geometry of the docks are my industrial link to water, and using drawings and photographs, I made 18 glass tiles based on these themes.
FIRE
A series of works on paper created using glass pyrography – artwork made with fire fire rather than a depiction of it. Molten glass was manipulated to create shapes based on river-lines. Rubbings on paper were taken, using hot glass to draw with. Very dramatic and exciting to make!.
