Circle, Wave, Stitch

Permanent ceramic public artwork by Alexis Teplin commissioned by Fletcher Priest Architects and Contemporary Art Society. The work comprises twelve hand-painted and etched ceramic panels installed throughout Braidwood Passage, each tile operating as a fragment of a larger continuous composition.

The commission responds to the layered history of the site as the location of a former textile factory, and to the surrounding architecture where Victorian brickwork sits in proximity to the Brutalist forms of the Barbican Estate. I was interested in the passageway as a space of movement and connection, where people physically weave between different architectural languages and periods.
The painted arcs are derived from the curved balconies of the Barbican, while the etched marks refer to gestures of stitching, weaving and repair. Circular forms and scalloped lines draw broadly on British decorative painting and early twentieth-century textile design, including references to Vanessa Bell and the Omega Workshops. These motifs suggest community, ornament and the trace of the handmade.

Using vermilion, carmine, ochre, rose madder, charcoal and bone white against the deep turquoise of the passage walls, the tiles are intended to catch the eye in flashes of segmented colour. The work reveals itself gradually through movement, with each panel contributing to a dispersed rhythm across the site.