A selection of public commissions of public art including glass, enamelled metal, flooring and participatory artwork.
Textile Triptych Commission, The New Treasure, for Exeter Cathedral Permanent Treasures Exhibition.
I was commissioned to create a site specific participatory commission, a new treasure for the new treasures gallery as part of a National Lottery funded project to restore the cloisters at Exeter Cathedral, create a cafe and a space to show some of their amazing archive. Thinking about the significance the church still holds within a more secular society – the need it can fulfil for ritual and sanctuary each section of the 2m by 1.5m triptych focuses on the themes of birth/new beginnings, marriage/union and death/presence of absence/grief/loss/.
I researched images and symbols that would communicate to both a secular and non secular audience. The birth panel features an egg shape contained with a spiral and acorns, as well as prints of leaves from trees around the vicinity of the cathedral. The marriage panel features cupped hands around a rose, apples/pomegranates and prints of rose petals. The death panel features a doorway/portal with the shadow of a figure glimpsed within, and prints of swan’s feathers.
I have worked with 108 participants from A level textile students at Exeter College, children and parents at Exeter Library, staff, volunteers and the wonderfully skilled Tapisers at the cathedral and the charities of St Petrocks, Hikmat and CoLab, with the excellent help and assistance of Lis Spencer, Community Outreach and Partnerships Officer. The participants worked with the same themes and processes I used, disperse dyes and heat transfer and also cyanotype on fabric. Taking A4 pieces of polyester satin, polyester crepe de chine or cotton to create with and then a 10cm viewing circle to select a smaller ‘jewel’. These jewels became a series of vertical lines of circles that delineate the different sections of the triptych and converse with each other. The last image shows the back of triptych that could only be viewed during installation.
Newquay Rose Garden.
Glass pod spinals with casts of roses atop the metal wigwams that support the roses, to give colour in the depths of winter and compliment the delight that is the rose garden in summer.
Malago River Project partnership with Helen Adshead Riverscapes Project Officer, Bristol City Council.
The brief was to raise awareness of the beauty of the River Malago that runs through the South Bristol and encourage more people to use this amazing green corridor in the heart of the city. Working with two local primary schools to involve the children in nature walks along the river, drawing and enamelling with approvable kiln taken into the schools. Davina produced four enamel information boards that told historical stories of the river, a poem that could be read both ways along the route and images captured in photos on walks with the children.
Masonic Lodge, Hayle, Cornwall.
A series of windows made for the ceremonial room to provide privacy, colour, contemplative phrases in the borders, and the insignia of local lodges. Etched, painted and enamelled glass.
Clifton College.
A millennium window, each child in the lower school learnt to cut glass and either created a fused panel or a printed transfer based on observation drawings done on nature walks and each nursery child collected natural objects and made a bas relief cast for the slumped glass border. The parents helped waterproof the windows after they had been leaded.
Spaces for Sport and Art Project, Rolleston Primary School, Leicester.
A narrative of figures enjoying activity travels throughout the Sports Centre from the entrance windows, designed from a photography project undertaken by the pupils, to enamelled panels made by the children that create a frieze in the changing rooms, to a jumping figure from one child’s drawing, cut into the corners of the sports hall flooring.
Eden Project, Cornwall– Enamelled invites for opening of The Core Building and enamelled panels for the Mining Waste Exhibition.
Individually created enamel copper postcards, based on the Fibonacci sequence, from recycled copper wastage from the construction of the roof of The Core Building and enamelled copper plaques and display – visualisation of acid seepage from mining.
Exeter Maternity Hospital.
Creative drawing/photography/collage and enamel workshops with midwives to create framed work and enamel panels for entrance way and corridors to create a less intimidating more friendly atmosphere. Commission to create enamel panels and adjustable light boxes for the birthing rooms based on seascapes and looking into the littoral zone, to give both a sense of space, another location, a transitional space between water and land and details to focus on to aid the birthing process.
Tintagel Primary School residency and commission.
A whole school project – What makes this place special to you? Pupils were involved in drawing, printmaking, collage, photography, field trips, stage sets/Cornell boxes and enamelling culminating in a showcase exhibition and a permanent enamel artwork on the exterior of the school.
Weather Gallery, The Beacon, Whitehaven.
Residency and commission working with the poet Sara-Jane Arbury to create a poetic, sensory and visual response to the extraordinary layered historical narrative of Whitehaven. A frieze of etched, kiln formed (cast from the mud in the harbour before it was flooded to create a marina) and sandblasted glass frames the curved upper gallery space.
