LC0245

A panel that failed to hold its contents. The shoal has crossed the boundary of the circle and swims across the bare wall — the composition loses its closure deliberately, and that is its principal gesture.

Below, a mass of cones grows out of the plane like the tubes of marine worms or the mouths of volcanoes; at the centre a gold sphere around which they thicken. The shoal breaks away from that mass and leaves — movement from below upward, out of the dense into the empty.

By day it is a section of reef raised onto a wall: texture, relief, runs of colour. In the evening the glow emphasises the relief, the fish begin to throw highlights, and the shoal seems to accelerate.

Where it works

Feature walls in generous rooms: a hall, a stair landing, a private living room, a lobby, a restaurant.

Style

Art Nouveau and organic modernism: natural textures, a subdued palette, large planes. The message is escape — a composition about how living things will not stay inside a frame.