Photo @ Jamie Woodley courtesy PONY and Bristol City Council
Synopsis
For the redevelopment of Minerva Primary Academy, Glaswegian based artist Toby Paterson developed a series of nine interrelated artworks throughout the new school. The integrated artworks and treatments introduce unexpected, playful dimensions to the environment by transforming ‘off the peg’ objects and structures, which marry an over-arching visual context, representing the Shift in Perspective that education can offer.
Description
An artist of international repute, Toby Paterson’s work frequently moves outside the gallery in the form of both temporary and permanent commissions in public settings.
For Minerva Primary Academy, Paterson developed an extensive series of works hung off an aesthetic rationale, creating numerous touchpoints all forming a continuous visual journey, enveloping the exterior build and landscapes in addition to internal communal environments. All works communicate with the architectural features in a vibrant manner and aim to bring about an interesting friction between materiality and function.
By augmenting key architectural features in unexpected ways, working with a simple, formal vocabulary derived from the geometries of the existing design and applying it at a range of scales throughout the scheme; the experience of the school is enlivened through simple means such as colour.
Introducing abstract forms at the entrance and façade, throughout the exterior finishes, landscape, and internal interventions harmoniously achieves a distinctive, welcoming atmosphere positively impacting the children’s and community’s experience of the school.
The artworks include:
- A complete structural trompe l’oeil render scheme
- A sculptural main entrance canopy
- Tactile privacy screens
- Printed roofing for a secondary canopy
- A series of large-scale wall paintings to aid orientation
- 3D signage and strategy
- Redesign of external landscapes introducing soft forms and mounds for play
- A series of Jesmonite sculptural ‘owl’ forms which harmoniously achieve a distinctive, welcoming identity
- A new school mascot that has been assimilated into school uniforms, which also incorporate the central artwork palette
Commissioned with PONY as part of Primary/Bristol, a series of permanent contemporary art commissions for Primary Schools, that is the most significant programme of commissioning art for educational contexts in the country.
"This was a rare opportunity to see art positively affect the experience of young people throughout a brand new school."Toby Paterson, Artist
"Public Art made a hugely positive impact to the quality of the Minerva school project for the children and the community."Project Director, Department of Education
"I learned a lot about how art can tie a building and its surroundings together and we ended up with an outstanding space."Head Teacher, Minerva Primary Academy
Further Reading
Toby Paterson is a visual artist of international repute. Based in Glasgow, Paterson won the 2002 Beck’s Futures Prize and received a Creative Scotland Award in 2006. The forms and ideas inherent in architecture inspire Paterson’s work. He has a particular interest in the post-war reinvention of cities under the influence of Modernism and is intrigued by what the cultural outcome of that influence has been.
Major permanent public works have been commissioned for BBC Scotland’s headquarters in Glasgow (2007), in the South West area of The Hague (2013) and for Islington Council, London (2020). Paterson has also developed expansive works for the Docklands Light Railway’s Stratford International Extension in London (2012) and in Dunfermline town centre in Fife (2014). In August 2022 elements from Paterson’s 2017 Edinburgh Art Festival project were permanently installed on the city’s Canongate.
Toby Paterson is represented by The Modern Institute in Glasgow.
