Years ago when I visited The House of Dreams Museum in Dulwich, I was struck by how mosaic didn’t need to be neatly cut pieces of ceramic or glass. It could literally be any material. It’s a bringing together of pieces or objects to create a new whole.
Last year we were commissioned by NBC’s Green is Universal initiative to create a new piece of art using recycled material. They had a surplus of old cables, and we were given the task of turning these dull wires into something beautiful that would become a show piece in their new offices.
After a period of research, we began the process by creating a physical mood board, cutting, sticking, gluing and nail gunning. We were able to bring our knowledge of mosaic to the exploration – how to create flow and direction while considering texture, colour and shape.
Inspired by the NBC’s peacock logo, our design became an abstract, enlarged peacock feather. We created different textures by gluing sections of cable on their ends, juxtapositioned with flat cables nail-gunned into the wood. The effect being that the onlooker needs to take a closer look to see what the material is.
Each member of the studio team brought their own flair and skill to the piece. Lucy and Alice brought their creativity and graft, putting in the hours to create a high end piece of art, out of something that was going to be discarded. It was exciting to finally install the piece in the NBC office, we have had great feedback, so much so that NBC ‘Green is Universal’ commissioned us to make a second piece of art using recycled materials.
Our current piece is making a replica of the Universal’s earth logo, focusing on planet earth and thinking about her oceans. We have been given DVD’s and CD’s as our new material and our job is to transform this waste product into something new. Our experimentation of cutting, sticking and shaping has started. We visited the scrap store in Wandsworth to pick up extra interesting recycled pieces. It’s a great place to visit and it’s described on the website as ‘a fantastic treasure trove, presenting waste and surplus goods as arts and crafts materials to inspire creativity.’
If you are a company that is having a clear out or find yourself with a surplus of material that is hard to recycle please get in touch for a chat, I am sure we could transform and recycle your waste product into something truly magnificent. Email me on creative@art4space.co.uk.