Incidental Interiors is a site-specific installation by artists Rachel Barron and Anna Shirron, which takes the hospital’s interior as its starting point.
Zooming in on architectural elements that may typically go unnoticed – from duct taped floor panels to metal grid structures and spiral air vents – the artists have drawn from the incidental colour schemes and material encounters found within the hospital building.
Bringing together their work for the first time within this exhibition, the installation is composed of suspended panels that layer and interact; Shirron’s paper cut outs – made entirely by hand – are formed of patterns derived from a series of photographs that magnify unplanned visual aspects within the hospital interior; Barron’s transparent fabric panels display subtle hues of colour that reference the hospital’s navigational mapping system of colour coded zones. The work seeps into the hospital environment, through playful interventions that interact with interior elements.
Through their installation, the artists aim to heighten the viewer’s perception of the hospital environment, encouraging a shift in perspective when re-entering its complex interior.
Anna is a Visual Artist working mainly within the fields of painting and paper cutting. Her current work concerns itself with pattern and detail, looking at the idea of ‘beauty’ and ‘ugly’ – using materials, patterns and motifs that may normally be considered purely decorative to depict more challenging subject matters.
Based in Aberdeen, Anna completed a BA(Hons) Painting in 2007, and a Master of Fine Art in 2010.
Rachel Initially trained as a painter, her current practice spans multiple disciplines, encompassing sculpture, installation, photography and printmaking. Her work is inherently intertwined with its context – framed by and fused with its architecture; she strives to heighten the viewer’s perception of their surroundings, expanding their sense of space, colour and light, by inviting them to relook, reinterpret and reimagine the hidden potentials within architectural spaces.
Based between Glasgow and Gothenburg, Rachel has recently completed her MFA in Fine Art at the Valand Academy.
Rachel has been involved in a number of group exhibitions within the UK and internationally, including ENACT (Göteborgs Konsthall, Gothenburg, 2016), STEAM Ahead (South Square Gallery, Bradford, 2016),Can You Dig It? (Vasagatan 33, Gothenburg, 2015) and Drawn Away Together (Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, 2013).
Exhibition photographs by Douglas Weir
This commission was funded by Creative Scotland and Aberdeen City Council