my love for murals
I was honoured to have Lymesmith’s Hanging Garden mural featured on the prestigious Ceramic Architectures website - and in very good company alongside projects by art superstar Olafur Eliasson and ‘starchitect’ Tadao Ando. Fine company indeed.
This artwork remains one of my all time favourite mural projects - and yet it began as something of an afterthought for the client and architect.
Looking back at this work from 2016 inspired me to think about why I love making murals and why I think they are important for architecture, and for our built environments.
A mural is essentially a wall painting, or an artwork covering a wall. It’s an artistic work at the scale of the building. The importance of scale cannot be over stated, and I believe that a contextual or ‘site specific’ design is also key to a successful mural project.
When I design a mural, I am trying to make a work that responds to, and is inspired by the place, or the context of the mural – that is – the physical environment, the architecture itself, and the surrounding environment, which may mean for example; the ecology, the geology and the culture of the place. I’m trying to create a dynamic harmony between all these forces that make up a place. I’m trying to reflect back something about the place, an awareness of where we are, of the nature of the place, and its beauty.
Image: Julia Charles
A more recent mural project, Underwater Sky Jerrabomberra, was developed from the same principles, with an entirely different outcome. Unlike the dramatic sandstone landscape of the Hanging Garden mural, this mural is underground, in a former basement garage. The garage, in terms of a space for human use, had one redeeming feature – a lightwell.
The garage has been radically transformed (by Sally Hieatt) into an atmospheric and unique executive meeting room. I designed the artwork to complement Sally’s colour and material palette. Part submerged wetland, part sky, the lightwell becomes a link to the world outside, the wetlands and lake at the end of the street.
Wrapping the mural around the walls and beyond the height of the doors and windows draws the eye up to the outside world, a space to breathe, bringing the outside in.
The addition of a mural in this space exceeds the expectations of the workplace and positively affects the mood of the business. It makes something purposeful from a small and unremarkable space.
Lymesmith artworks become an essential part of the architecture, drawing connections between building, environment and people.
Ultimately, a murals purpose is to enrich buildings, and to enrich our lives.
Image: Anne Stroud
Interior Design: Sally Hieatt
