My wallpapers

My designs for wallpapers are one offs - digitally printed for a specific place. This aspect of my practice has developed alongside the glass panels I make, sometimes the wallpapers are seen through a glass wall panel, sometimes they are a solid wall to contrast with a coloured window.

In my commission for the paediatric mortuary at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, the wallpapers played an important part in linking together a series of rooms that we decorated with new colours and artworks in glass and vinyl. The project was completed last year when I described the vinyl door vision panels here and the main glass artwork here. After a recent visit to check out the new furniture that completed the scheme I saw how well the wallpapers worked in the tricky spaces.

Model of the tricky spaces - five rooms with no external windows

I designed the wallpapers to a brief that asked for abstract artworks, with little reference to the outside world. Because of the unique nature of the space and the sensitivities of the people who would use it, they needed to be nothing like you would have in your home, and nothing like you would ever see again. The designs followed a series of workshops with staff and bereaved families who gave their opinions forcefully. Back in my studio I made a series of watercolours and collages that drew on the workshops and formed the basis of my designs.

A favourite collage, I tried not to stray too far from this in the following designs for five wallpapers.

Design for Room 2. Waiting Corridor. 2.6 x 6.8 metres

Photos of the trickiest narrowest space, the waiting corridor.

Design for Room 3. Children's Viewing. 2.6 x 2.6 metres

Photos through the viewing window to the viewing room wallpaper.

Design for Room 4. Children's Bedroom. 900mm x 6.4 metres

Photos from the viewing room to the Children’s Bedroom wallpaper and glass panel.

Design for Room 5. Babies’ Viewing. 2.6 x 1.8 metres

Photos into babies’ viewing room and through the viewing window.

Design for Room 6. Babies’ Bedroom. 900mm x 6.4 metres

Photos through viewing window into the babies’ bedroom with wallpaper and glass panel.

Approach corridor

Vinyl/glass/vinyl window at Manchester Children’s Hospital: 1800 mm square.

Sunburst was not the title intended for the piece I have just installed in a white corridor leading to the paediatric mortuary at Manchester Children’s Hospital. However in the record breaking February sunshine this week and framed by the corrugated sides of the hospital building outside, it glows like a gentle star. As you can see in the photo below left, dramatic shadows and colours are cast on to the floor - surely the best thing about stained glass. Evidently I hadn’t dared imagine the effect would be so good as the collage of my design on to the photo of the space shows (below right).

Left: Feature window at the entrance to the paediatric mortuary. Right: Photomontage of the same space.

This feature window is part of a commission for artworks in the series of rooms that make up the mortuary. It was almost two years ago when I designed the work following consultation with staff and bereaved families and to a brief that asked for the artwork to be abstract, with no representational imagery and using gentle colours and shapes. Last month I wrote about the colour scheme and the door vision panels; there will be more on the wall designs (digitally printed wallpaper), wall panels and viewing windows when the new furniture arrives to complete the rooms later on.

Below is a page of sketches showing the development of the design for the feature window. I was concerned about working with - rather than fighting against - the horizontal bars and not blocking the wonderful view.

12 sketches showing development of the design

Window detail: vinyl on the left in this picture.

The feature window is made up of a hefty piece of laminated and toughened printed glass (2500 x 780 x 17mm) flanked by two pieces of printed transparent vinyl applied to the surface of the existing window. I hadn’t tried this combination up against each other before, and was apprehensive that the colours on the vinyl would look weak against the sparkling enamels on the glass. But they compliment each other well, the white/shadows are just as strong, and the pattern cast on the floor is colourful but subtle.