The original concept in the restaurant was that my artworks would be on show for a couple of years, and then they would choose another artist so I hadn’t thought too much about doing another exhibition. But I think my artwork, combined with India Mahdavi's interior design, was more popular than we anticipated – people responded to it really well, and it's really comfortable.
Rather than just do the same work again, or just replace the artwork with like for like, I thought I'd do something different, if not for the sake of variety. In the new collection I've brought in more colour and drawn on various different media, such as acrylics, printmaking and even oil bar drawings. India has, in turn, brought out the iconic pink even more.
Really, there are two exhibitions at play. Originally, I wanted to create an exhibition on the table. This is where the tableware came in. Drawing on the idea of interacting with sculpture, I created plates, bowls, teacups and teapots with text on them. My thinking was that while having afternoon tea, or dining at Sketch, you have all these individually handmade pieces of tableware with little messages on them. You're invited to drink your tea, eat your cakes, and maybe ponder them, or maybe not. I loved the idea of having functional artwork, something that could then be further embellished by all the beautiful cakes.
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Each of the tableware pieces was handmade in Stoke-on-Trent. It was very time intensive, but very enjoyable, and interesting in my own journey of learning the technical aspects of each functional item. Teapots and milk jugs needed to pour properly, and the interaction between the pieces and the food was very important to me as well. The dinner plates that I created for Sketch display a crudely drawn map of the square in Mayfair – with Conduit Street, Regent Street and Maddox Street. And right in the middle of the plate is your food, representing Sketch itself. For me, that was a great little conceptual piece. Some of the other tableware is more playful, displaying slightly unfinished decorations, or messages at the bottom of the teacups or on the teapots.
There is definitely a place for artistic-led dining experiences such as that at Sketch. These days food is all about creativity, particularly at the high end. Your introduction to the food, and the discussion you can have about, it is akin to conceptual art in a way – the ideas behind each dish inform your experience of the food, the seasonality of it, the sourcing of it and all the tiny details you might miss.
DAVID SHRIGLEY is a British visual artist who recently created a new exhibition for artist-led restaurant Sketch. davidshrigley.com; sketch.london
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