Projects
GLASS:
Glass partitions/curtain wall systems.
One of the aspects of my art that I've always tried to portray is the way that it can civilise even the most difficult of spaces.
This thought process then led me to an idea that originated when I was working as an architect where I would work with and involve artists on stained glass walls as a means of dividing space: In 1990 I was asked to work with Martin Donlin to incorporate a large piece in the West Dorset Hospital in Dorchester as part of an internal curtain wall system. In 1994 I commissioned and worked with Mark Angus on a curved wall glass wall in a Day hospital in Cirencester.
The technology available at that time was traditional stained glass with either lead cames, epoxy adhesives or acid wash/engraving. Once Art glass moulding became readily available and affordable I used this in multi faith prayer facilities in Amersham and Bromley focussing on texture and lighting.
In 2004 I was asked to work with the poet Alicia Stubbersfield to incorporate her words onto external sliding glass screens to a café in Blaise Castle estate so that a number of different readings were created depending on how the words overlapped.
Although the technology involved with glass was developing rapidly, incorporating coloured glass was limited to either glass by stained glass artists or by artists using coloured glass sheets: The largest commission of this type I worked on was on the facades comprising the Bristol Pathology laboratories with Kate Blee in 2017 where over 400 sheets of glass, 600w x 2700h, were used to reflect the orchards that originally occupied the site.
Southmead pathology: Glass artwork by Kate Blee
Technology improvements:
I was aware that European glass companies were developing an enamelling technique for transcribing original art onto single sheets of glass and I had been using developments in flat bed printing to print very large images onto a number of different materials but it was when I saw a private house designed by the Architects Patel Taylor in 2019 that it became clear that printing technology and glass technology had developed to a point where original images could be flat bed printed to very large formats and that the laminating material used for laminated glass could become the medium for the Artwork.
Progress
Discussions are at an early stage with a few companies e.g. Saint Gobain and Hourglass but I'm hopeful that a means of making the laminating material UV resistant can be found so that my work can be incorporated into very large glass installations and that they will last.
Here are a few images including a 2100 x 2100mm laser print screen hanging in The Mount Without, Bristol as part of the Finding Light in Shadow show 2022.
