Pouring Paint Down the Walls of the New Maths & Stats Building
Next Monday Ian Davenport, a Turner Prize-nominated artist, will be preparing to start work on a large-scale lottery-funded piece of art in the new Maths and Stats Building. The artist will be working in situ as he pours paint down a 30 x 35-foot wall to create a shimmering curtain of colour. University Members are welcome to watch him work.
Sarah Shalgosky, Curator of the Mead Gallery and the University’s Art Collection, has commissioned the piece from Davenport. She believes that it will be a fantastic addition to the University’s collection and along with Let’s Not Be Stupid, the Deacon sculpture opposite the Arts Centre, and Patterson’s Cosmic Wallpaper in the Ramphal Building, will draw in visitors to the University.
Sarah believes that the piece will fit particularly well in the Maths Building as academic colleagues from the department have explained to her that mathematicians think in pure abstracts.
Davenport, a YBA (Young British Artist) Generation artist and Goldsmith’s graduate, has won prizes for similar work. In 2002, he won the Pizza Express Prospects contemporary drawing prize for a wall illustration. He has also exhibited at Tate Liverpool and has work at the Tate Britain.
Sarah is keen to stress that the piece will centralise the Mead Gallery’s Colour Trail campus walk as well as translating easily into the classroom for the Mead’s educational outreach work.
Davenport will be on campus preparing the space from next Monday onwards and will start work on Thursday 25 March. He hopes to be finished by Good Friday, but in the meantime University members are welcome to go along and watch him work.
The Mead Gallery is also commissioning a series of photographs to track the progression of the piece. David Rand, the Chair of Mathematics, has been personally involved and his son Rupert hopes to record the event on film.
http://www.waddington-galleries.com/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/1998753.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/news_comment/artistsinprofile/davenport.shtml