Commissions
Steve 2014
Steve is a fictional man living in the North of England. He is a family man, he works hard all week, he may have his own business, if he doesn’t he is almost certainly a partner or director within his company. Cars are very important to him. Steve spends a lot of time driving, he’s a 2L Diesel man, hitting 30,000 miles a year and he knows a lot about roads. In the future Steve will think about other ways to power his transportation and his home, in the future Steve will become interested in soft ways to harness energy. ‘Steve’ is today’s monument for this man of the future.
‘Sitting in the art consuming life…’ Franz West
An off grid structure, to be built for Folkestone Triennial 2014, to sit on the harbour wall surrounded by verdant coastal planting, a monument to the future, to a time when sustainable technologies are entirely everyday. Steve is new school/old school – a pivotal meeting of past and future materials and values. An urban folly, free from commercial or denominational imperatives. A reframing device for the unarticulated spaces between work, shop and home. A giant transportable jewel. A secret garden. A knowledge exchange machine; an optimistic Tardis; a conversation piece, a transient artwork that leaves a memory. An aesthetic object, created from a series of asymmetric planes locking together like the facets of quartz crystal. Material Specifications: A primary structure in corten steel, with photovoltaic cells, with fennel, mint, kale sea buckthorn, samphire, sea beet, & sea cabbage grow at the base of the structure. Steve’s satellites contain the planting and work as outdoor furniture.
www.folkestonetriennial.org.uk/
Coniston Cricket Pavilion 2013
Shortlisted design by Dominic Cullinan, Giles Round and Sarah Staton with Ana Perez to create a Cricket Pavilion that doubles as a luxurious winter rental. Commissioned by Grizedale Arts with the Coniston Cricket Team.
Our proposal is directly inspired by the local Ruskin legacy. Our artists and architects collaboration was an engaging process for one and all. Home and Away is the name of the pavilion that we devised —a two storey stucture that takes into consideration the habitats and needs of the Coniston Cricket Team. Space for indoor tea, a desire to retain the basic shed like changing room, storage and showers were all to be considered. Home and Away is a dual purpose building, the cricket spaces are repurposed in winter months as exemplary spaces for a luxurious rental, bringing income to the club in years to come. The ground floor is the space created between the lean to changing rooms, loos and storage.
This is an indoor/outdoor room for cricket teas and village events. When fully open its huge doors make this space a gateway between village and pitch. The first floor overhang protects against inclement weather, and makes a sheltered terrace space adjacent to the pitch. A score board hangs from one of these big pivoted doors. The first floor interiors are located precisely to optimise the views of the beautiful Lake District landscape. The Old Man of Coniston appears to float within the large picture windows, which are orientated towards this landmark. The Ruskin connection is revealed in the detail—our roof appears flat from the ground, but in fact it is comprised of a series of angled plans that run towards a central drain that is the glass roof of the wet room below. This directs water off the roof over the changing rooms onto a judiciously placed rock, an irrigated outdoor urinal that leads into a bespoke stream. A reference to the extenisve irrigation systems that Ruskin dug into the hillside at Lawson Park.
Artist’s ingenuity in sourcing materials, attracting support in kind from suppliers, some of whom are already art patrons, will ensure a high specification finish that minimises maintenance, adds value and brings pleasure to all who will use the building in years to come. Home and Away links to a great legacy of artists that have designed buildings, often for their own use as homes, and sometimes for other purposes. In the Lakes, Voysey, further south William Morris, Duncan Grant, in Austria Joseph Maria Olbrich, in France, Sophie Tauber Arp are just some of the historic precedents that have inspired us.
Sea Marsh Grass 2014
Commissioned by Jon Sheaff Landscape Architect with Places for People.
Client: Places for People
Budget: 5k.
Sea Marsh Grass is a large scale outdoor wall painting, applied directly onto a gable end wall at Willingdon Trees Estate, Eastbourne. Willingdon Trees is a rambling expanse of post war housing provision set at the foot of the South Downs, a northern perimeter for the coastal town of Eastbourne. The light here, so near to the sea, has a special quality, and the closely toned colours chosen for the wall painting create a fugitive quality. In full sunlight the image appears almost as a shadow of a huge sea marsh plant that isn’t there. This commission is the pilot for a number of further wall paintings that will function as way finding through the estate and its maze of orange brick housing blocks, cul-de-sacs and green spaces.
Harold & Maude
A commission to create an intimate waterside sculpture garden at Hanningfield in Essex.
Client: Essex and Suffolk Water.
Value: 15K.
Project Manager: Peter Sharpe.
Hanningfield Reservoir was constructed in the 1950’s to supply water to London and the South East. It is a flooded valley set in a gently rolling Essex landscape. The water hides the remains of a Jacobean House in which it is said Guy Fawkes plotted his legendary gunpowder assault. An outdoor room has been set in place&living willow for walls and arbour with scented honeysuckle running through it. Utility Sculpture, with a profile that invokes an inverted church spire located in the centre of the seating area, creating a sighline from the access path. Simon Bill Duck Rabbit Sculpture in cast aluminum with decommissioned post as plinth is set to the side of the outdoor room, and resonates well with the profusion of comical ducks and abundance of rabbits at this location. Two bespoke and beautiful green oak benches from which to admire the view across the water complete the scheme.
Hugo
Commission to work with planting, furniture and sculpture to bring the 4th floor sculpture terrace into use.
The sculpture: Rose quartz occupies an irregular perforated metal frame. The two sit on a clinker block plinth. Furniture and planting augment the sculpture transforming the terrace into a social space for the people of Walsall. Elements of the scheme include exceptionally heavy furniture that will, by force of inertia, remain on the terrace. A perimeter planter stretches the full 30m length of the parapet and raises the wall of the terrace to create a wind break. It is planted with sedums and alpines giving the romantic effect of lifting the eye towards the horizon. Large planters with a generous mix of wind resisting, strong and verdant foliage sits at one end of the terrace. The planting makes a delightful scented microclimate.
Crucible 2010
Crucible Theatre Commission to create bespoke objects for this Grade 11 Listed civic building, a brilliantly designed 1971 theatre in the round.
Client: Sheffield Theatres.
Value: 65K.
The artist loves this building for its utility, flow, vistas, sightlines, the remnants of its first generation signage, its elegant geometry, its utilitarianism, egalitarianism, and its futurism. The artist proposed a number of Utility Sculptures: Crucible Clock Bench, Studio Sign, Hostess Trolleys & Asymmetric Floor. Crucible Clock Bench: walnut, glass & LEDs. A slow time bench, inspired by the one armed Medieval Venetian clocks that show only the hour, nothing smaller. The LEDs within in this bench pulse and breathe like a sleeping MacBook. Every hour, on the hour, the lights perform a frenetic crescendo. The bench is positioned in such a way that its lighting elements shine out across the civic square, & welcome people to the building. It is an event within the box office. This giant bench provides a perch for older folk to rest temporarily should they wish to do so. Studio Sign: walnut, Corian and LEDs. A dark corridor gives access to the Studio Theatre. Studio Sign illuminates this space, with backlighting that delivers rainbows to the interior as it runs through the spectrum. Hostess Trolley: Stained ply, wheels. A set of unique and giant hostess trolleys have been designed by the artist for the purpose of providing surfaces for interval drinks. The trolleys operate like actors who glide into the empty foyer while the theatre goers enjoy the first act. The Hostess Trolleys are mute waiters, and like old retainers are embedded into the flow and the fabric of the building. Asymmetric Floor: A stained oak floor cut in rhomboids echoes the bold design of the foyer carpet. It links the new reception room to its older parts, and this pattern continues out of the building across the new terrace, were it is defined in cast concrete blocks.
Apples & Pears
Commissioned by Farrar Huxley Associates and the Peabody Trust. Abbey Orchard Estate, Westminster, London. Abbey Orchard Estate is a late 19th century Peabody Housing Development minutes away from the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. With very low car ownership on the estate, in 2003 a new garden to replace parking within the courtyard was commissioned.The artist worked with A2 Graphics to create a bespoke font for text and map wall. Giant fruit sculptures were introduced as part of the place-making strategy. A playground was included in the scheme, and the artist worked with the community on designs that were etched into a 15m curved concrete seat. Abbey Orchard Estate received a UK Landscape Award in 2012.
Schrebergartenhaus
Blickachsen Skulpturen im Kurpark Bad Homburg v.d. Höhe In Zusammenarbeit mit dem Yorkshire Sculpture Park West Bretton, Wakefield, Großbritannien 13. Mai bis 9. Oktober 2007.
Participating Artists:
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Stephan Balkenhol, Anthony Caro, Lynn Chadwick May Cornet, Helen Escobedo, Alec Finlay, Leo Fitzmaurice, Barry Flanagan Laura Ford, Matt Franks, Elisabeth Frink, Kenny Hunter, Jörg Immendorff Philip King, Peter Lundberg, Dhruva Mistry, Sophie Ryder, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Sarah Staton, Auke de Vries, Kwanho Yuh
What is the Schrebergarten? Dr. Daniel Gottlob Moritz Schreber advocated the development of garden parcels for workers living in cramped city conditions. In the mid 1800s, he helped to develop the first of these gardens in Leipzig. While small allotment gardens flourish throughout Europe, the German variety is unique and orderly to the point of obsessiveness. The communities are governed by long lists or rules while each collective has its own set of rules. The regulations include everything from the size of the garden hut, satellite dishes, what types of plants may and may not be cultivated, and how often the paths in front of the gardens must be raked or mown. Schrebergartenhaus provides asymmetric affront to these strict protocols.
Swiss Cheese Shred 2014
The Other Flower Show, Pirelli Garden, Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Commissioned by Emma Underwood UP Projects. 10 Artists customise 10 sheds.
Participating Artists: Heather Barnett, Tord Boontje, Vince Clarke and Martyn Ware, Tracey Emin, Graham Fagen, Fat, Nilu Izadi, Andreas Oehlert, Sarah Staton, Chris Taylor and Craig Wood.
Swiss Cheese Shed is a bespoke shed, a structure perforated with holes for doors and holes for windows.
Guineveres Pavilion 2008
Neue Kunst in alten Garten
Participating Artists:
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Axel Anklam, Jaqueline Doyen, Alec Finlay und Arne Rautenberg, Lotte Londner und Til Steinbrenner, Pavel Seliger, Sarah Staton, Matthaus Thoma, Timm Ulrichs, Auke de Vries, Rob Ward, Carl Emanuel Wolff.
What wond’rous life in this I lead!
Ripe Apples drop about my head,
The Luscious Clusters of the Vine,
Upon my Mouth do crush their Wine,
The Nectaren, and curious Peach,
Into my hand themselves do reach,
Stumbling on Melons, as I pass,
Insnared with Flow’rs: I fall on Grass…
From The Garden 1681 by Andrew Marvell
www.neue-kunst-in-alten-gaerten.de/2008/sarah-staton.html
Artisan Apartments 2009
Neue Kunst in alten Garten