Stained Glass - Applique


artists' sketch








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Title: The Translucent Body

Public Art Commission

Hillingdon Hospital

Mount Vernon Treatment Centre

Materials: Stained-glass

appliqué/mosaic

(no grout)

Double glazed units

High tension wire

Size: each panel

2.1 mts x 900mms

This piece was inspired by the following three ancient Greek philosophical beliefs:

i) the light of the human soul has the potential to shine forth through all parts of a nurtured human body; shown here via the translucency of the material and the use of the bright healthy colours

ii) there is a universal blueprint for each species of physical form, which shines forth through every individual manifestation of that form; eg. the spine illustrated here represents the universal Form 'Spine'

iii) art should strive toward being beautiful if its aim is to aid stripping away the opaque layers of human disillusionment and negative emotional response that can otherwise build up. The ancients believed that beauty encourages the translucency of our experience and the growth of the wings of the human soul. Equally shocking/negative imagery was believed to encourage base, unhealthy, opaque, human experience.

Hospital user's comment:

“Waiting for transport to arrive to take me home from Mount Vernon Hospital I was attracted to the stained glass panels on the entrance doors. On further inspection from the outside I found myself drawn into the experience of translucent colours, shape and thought-provoking words. Thank you so much for helping to turn a sad time into something so much more positive than the pain of knowing my precious daughter has cancer. My spirit was lifted by your beautiful work.” - comment from a hospital user

Private commission - Screen

Materials: Stained-glass appliqué/mosaic (white grout)

Wooden free-standing frame

Size (of glass): 880mms x 550mms

Dreamtime	Detail	Detail
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Dreamtime was inspired by Aboriginal art work/cave paintings. Art has been a key part of the world’s oldest continuous cultural tradition. The Aborigines often told their stories in pictures, stories about how the world began. This they called the dreamtime and the stories were known as Dreamings. The pictures constructed include symbols which at a metaphysical level have been seen as a major means of recreating ancestral events, ensuring continuity with the ancestral past and of communicating with the spirit world. Before using canvas and board, as they might now, the Aborigines painted dreamings on to rocks and the walls of caves, this practice dates back 40,000 yrs. A rock painting of a Rainbow serpent was not just a picture of a Rainbow serpent it was/is, a manifestation of the Rainbow serpent (she is believed to reside in the painting). The designs themselves have been believed to possess/contain the powers of the ancestral beings. In this way art becomes an act of worship as well as of culture.