Erin Hughes
Newham Horizons, 2024
Framed fine art giclée prints and framed hand-marbled paper collages, vinyl
Gallions Reach intensive care unit and Upton Park respiratory ward, Newham Hospital
Following the artist's 2022 collaboration with Vital Arts for a palliative care centre and an A&E staff area, we invited Hughes to undertake this major commission at Newham Hospital. Extending over two floors, the installation features landscape imagery based on green spaces around Newham Hospital.
The artist is known for depicting the rolling hills and waterways of mid Wales, where she is based. For this project, however, Hughes transferred her sensibilities to east London where she spent time meeting with patients and staff, and discovering some of the natural scenery and beauty spots in Plaistow.
To develop this artwork, the artist led a series of creative workshops with patient groups. Hughes taught the participants to create hand-made marbled paper. She demonstrated the ancient tradition of decorative stone marquetry, known as pietra dura which uses inlaid coloured stones to create patterns or imagery—an aesthetic which runs throughout her practice.
Using the hand made paper, participants created collages featuring their favourite local green spaces, which Hughes incorporated into the final installation. Along with an extensive series of works on paper, the artist designed floor to ceiling window treatments that produce the illusion of a rural landscape within a brick wall courtyard. The installation also includes elements that emanate beyond the framed collages, enlivening entire corridors.
Mindful that many patients using these wards will be supine, the artist thoughtfully configured the installation to be visible from an elevated, reclining position. She also factored in the possibility that many patients in the ward, at some point, may not be conscious enough to perceive the details of the framed images, so she offers them the experience of diffused colour horizons as a visual aid.
Such considerations reflect how Vital Arts works with artists to carefully calibrate commissions that respond to the specificity of each space and how they are occupied by patients.
About the artist
Erin Hughes, born in 1989, lives and works in mid Wales. She studied at the Ruskin School of Art at Oxford University, and received an MA from the Royal College of Art. She has exhibited extensively in Wales and England, as well as in Berlin, Tokyo and Athens. She has an ongoing collaboration with the Will Barnes Quartet, contributing live liquid marbling visuals to accompany their musical performances.
This project was funded by Barts Charity.