patternsthatconnect

The Mathematics Institute at the University of Warwick has a number of abstract paintings on the walls. One of them is painted directly onto the wall.

This magnificent work by Ian Davenport entitled Everything, is the result of pouring paint (via a syringe) from the top of the wall, one stripe at a time. The colours run down the wall and form little pools on the ledge below.

Following a predetermined system Davenport seems to combine both control and chance, the colours taking the path set for them, yet sometimes meeting and mixing with others, their specific forms allowed rather than delineated.

There are smaller paintings than this, some of theme equally concerned with the process of painting, and with the “deliberately accidental”, Callum Innes‘s words for the process he adopts of dividing the canvas into two, painting a quarter with a flat colour leaving the other quarter exposed, and then taking the same colour and applying it to the other half of the canvas before “unpainting” it by rubbing it off with turpentine, leaving a ghost of the original colour.

Down the corridor from this painting is almost its opposite. A painting that has little interest in ghosts of paint, or even in paint that is flatly applied. Gillian Ayres‘ paint stands a couple of inches off the surface of the canvas, thick and physically present.

Apparently the mathematicians here are fond of the abstract paintings, and are surprised when we are surprised by that. “After all” they say “we are used to working with abstract concepts”

I have written from time to time about art in the workplace, keen as I have become, to see good paintings there, pleased on the odd occasion that I find some, and fascinated by the responses of workers.

Why I haven’t thought before about art on display in those particular workplaces called universities I don’t know, especially as there are often galleries associated with them, and also that the buildings are sometimes open to the public. In Nottingham the Lakeside Gallery is part of the University of Nottingham and The Bonington Gallery is in the School of Art & Design at  Nottingham Trent University. It is not so long since I visited the Whitworth, at Manchester University and the other day I was introduced to the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery in the Parkinson Building of Leeds University.

They have some lovely abstract paintings, including work by John Hoyland, Terry Frost (one that I think is particularly good), Victor Vaserely, Victor Pasmore and Trevor Bell.

I have many times been on the campus of Warwick University but never realised that there was art to be seen there, not only at the Mead Gallery, but also on the walls in the University buildings. Click here for an excellent introductory online exhibition.

A survey carried out in the USA in 2003, of over 800 employees, working for 32 companies with art collections found that

• 78% of employees surveyed agreed workplace art helps reduce stress.
• 94% agreed it enhances the work environment.
• 84% agreed it was evidence of their employer’s interest in improving the quality of life in and out of the workplace.
• 64% agreed it increases creativity and productivity.
• 67% agreed it enhances morale.
• 82% indicated that art is important in the work environment.
• 73% wanted more art in their workplace, claiming it helps make them feel more ‘motivated’ and ‘inspired.’

I propose to survey some opinions myself, using the same categories as Likert items. I don’t have access to 32 companies, though I do know a few that have (fairly modest) art collections.

By Gillian Ayres, seen in a workplace recently

By Gillian Ayres, also seen in a workplace recently

A problem with this method is that it cannot measure unconscious effects. (I remember once being surveyed about recognising certain adverts. I did not recognise them at all. I had seen them, and I knew that I had seen them, but I had no idea what was being advertised. I guess my scores would have looked negative on the effectiveness of those adverts. It was only later that I realised that I had started to buy the product featured in one of them).

I found an argument here that art is good for the workplace in that it “helps businesses address several key challenges, such as reducing stress, increasing creativity and productivity, enhancing morale, broadening employee appreciation of diversity, as well as encouraging discussions and expression of opinions”. Well, that was according to a USA survey in 2003 of over 800 people working for 32 companies that have workplace art collections.

I see quite a lot of original art (artists proofs at least) in workplaces, and I sometimes pluck up courage to ask people what difference it makes to them (encouraging discussions and expression of opinions). I get a variety of responses, quite a lot are negative. Less than a week ago I got “my five-year old child could do that” in relation to the Terry Frost Screenprint on the right of this set. The one that I think is the strongest and the most interesting.

Terry Frost Screenprints

I asked him what ‘that’ specifically he had in mind and he said “just paint a blue circle on a red piece of card”. Someone else pointed out that it was a screenprint and he seemed to become slightly more interested in it. But we had already changed the subject. What I wanted to know was what difference it made to him (if any) but what we got talking about was whether it was any good.

In the workplace I have mentioned before there are some Albert Irvin limited editions. They look a lot like his paintings. not as big, but big for screen prints.

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Here’s a link to a little film of Irvin looking at some of his own paintings in the storeroom of the Tate and talking about them. He says they are abstract painting, and adds “whatever that is”.

Then at the end, when asked how he would like to be remembered as an artist, he answers “I would like to be remembered!”

In the workplace I mentioned yesterday, there are also these three art works by an unknown artist.

The various artworks at this site were purchased when under previous management, perhaps a CEO who thought they were good investments (they probably were) or that it is the responsibility of business to support the arts (it probably is), or maybe she just liked them? Anyway,  they have recently been catalogued but no one seems to know who made these three abstract painting/relief/collages.  Noticing that the collector went for living UK artists maybe that narrows it down a little bit.

Please comment if you think you may know who made them.

If your workplace had John Hoylands on the wall would it become a place of joy?

In an office where I sometimes work there are a few Hoyland limited edition prints from the 80s and 90s.

Early in the morning, before most people get to work, I sometimes go and view them.

Mostly they just get ignored,

They are in meeting rooms,

Unlooked at, they just ‘brighten up the place’.

I am enjoying this one a lot just now

It reminds me of one of Hoyland’s paintings from around the same  time this piece was made (1986).  The painting is entitled ‘Lust and Luxuries’ 1984 (it is reproduced in issue nine of Turps Banana, accompanying an interesting interview with Hoyland by Peter Dickinson) and is reminiscent of a plate of cakes. The workplace print (is it a lithograph?) looks more abstract than ‘Lust and Luxuries’ yet it does have plate of food associations for me. Does it for you?

I think it also has face associations. I don’t want to see the towards-violet shape near the bottom edge as a mouth yet I do.

A friend with synaesthesia once said to me that he knew paintings were good when he wanted to eat them!

When it’s not abstract colours and shapes it’s a plate of food or a face with a mouth possibly ready to eat a plate of food. I have the feeling that I am not supposed to be thinking in terms of associations in relation to Hoyland’s oeuvre, and at the same time I wonder of these food and eating associations are part of what makes the print attractive to me. Or maybe I have an oral fixation and I’m saying a lot more about me now than I am about the picture.

A group of 60 people or so receive step by step instructions, working first as individuals, and then in pairs , then groups of four, then groups of eight, 16, 32 and then in the full group. They start out with a post-it note which they fold and colour according to set instructions, using marker pens.

The post- it notes are combined as the various groups combine, making a set of four as an individual, then eight as a pair and 16 as a group of four

32 as a group of eight

etc.

Within about 30 minutes the full group has joined together to produce the final piece, and in doing so they learn about group and team behaviour, competition V.S. co-operation, ways of organising etc. I do not show them what the finished piece will look like. I let it emerge from the activity

In the debrief two sets of closely related themes can be explored: those inherent in the completed work (e.g. uniformity and diversity, the language of colour -possibly linked to operational definitions, hierarchical V.S. non-hierarchical organisational forms, intellectual property and ownership) and those that arise from the experience of making it (e.g. organisational behaviour, boredom and engagement, networking, creativity and procedure, leadership, influence and power)

The activity is based on the process for painting my Berkeley Square series, that started out in just this way (except that I was working as an individual starting with my first post-it then wondering what would happen if I combined it etc, etc).

Here’s the one I did as an individual

and here’s the one that the group did

A long time ago (1998) I wrote about art in the workplace for a competition called Writing About Art, the idea was to write something related to a Turner Prize nominee.  The competition was run by Waterstones and Channel Four. Each of the winners got to have a short film made based on their writing. I chose to write a true story about an art postcard of a Gillian Wearing photo from her series: Signs that say what you want them to say, and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say.

A workplace learning activity I sometimes lead, has four teams, each representing a country, in turn represented by a coloured rectangle on a ‘playing board’. Each team member parts with a small amount of cash at the beginning of the activity (50p or £1). A team may win back their money at the end, or other countries may win it from them. It depends how many roads they are able to build. Each road is worth say 20p, and in order to build one, a team is required to negotiate with the country whose land (or other roads) they intend to cross. They ‘build’ the roads by use of a marker pen. This is not an art activity. it is an activity about negotiation, politics, strategic decision-making, values etc.
And look at some of the art that is unwittingly/unconsciously created

unconscious art, outsider art, collaborative art, found art, process art, conceptual art, abstract art, figurative art, not art at all?