The Landing Girls

‘The Landing Girls’ is a permanent site-specific painting installation at Charing Cross Hospital, London by Jo Bruton and commissioned by Imperial Health Charity. Vinyl on 10’ x 30’ wall and etched free-standing glass panels 4 x 8’x10’. Framed original painting/template. 5’x4’.

‘The Landing Girls’ examines wallpaper as both a subject and a strategy to expand beyond the edges of the painting to work directly within a given site. Invited to develop this research as a permanent installation for Charing Cross Hospital Bruton has created an environment to navigate. Building on previous research and the experience of viewing she has visually adapted figures from aviation diagrams and manuals to play on the idea of communicating with and directing the viewer. Digital processes have been deployed to translate a painted template and repeat pattern onto vinyl where photographic detail and digital reworking maintain the physicality of the original painted surface. Her decorative motifs have also been etched onto glass panels, which creates a layered experience of form and space. Through the playful use of pattern, surface and material the work encourages movement. In this way, the installation animates both the space and an encounter with the viewer.

Discussions on the development of the commission took place over a two-year period between the artist, Architects, Murphy Philips, Design consultants Lucenta Design, The administrative staff and nursing community of the hospital, and the executors of the Health Care Charity. Following its installation ideas from the artwork have been used to run a series of workshops for the patients within the hospital; taking wallpaper as a starting point to explore memory and pattern. The Imperial Health Charity’s Art Collection includes works by modern and contemporary British artists such Gillian Ayres, Peter Blake and Patrick Caulfield.

Landing Girls continues an investigation into the performativity of making and viewing painting within a site-specific context. “Walk slowly towards the light” was the first major commission at Matt’s Gallery to develop this research. It was funded by the AHRB, and explored the reciprocal gaze and the showgirl as motif and mediator between the surface of the work and the act of looking. The decorative as a subject has traditionally occupied the margins of mainstream fine art practice. By using the chorus line up which usually frames the main event it becomes the focus and central activity for the audience to correspond with. This led to other AHRB funded research and investigations into performance and theatre. Capitaine Can-Can, a site-specific painting installation used the chorus line and architecture of the De La Warr Pavilion to create an encounter between the subject and viewer. In response to Bruton’s research, Author Michele Roberts wrote a series of short stories of the inner thoughts of the performer as another view and experience of the work. Capitaine Can-Can was also shown as a solo exhibition at Sadlers Wells, London. Capitaine Can-Can is also cited in Francesco Rapazzini’s Book Le Moulin Rouge en Folies, Quand le cabaret le plus celebre du monde inspire les artistes 2016.

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• http://www.imperialcharity.org.uk/art-co...