Untitled (Celebrated
Violinist) |
Dominique has interpreted the
De La Warr Pavilion as a personal expression of its architect Eric
Mendelsohn (1887-1953). The clean modernist lines of the white
building and its nautical features act as a visionary metaphor which
expresses Mendelsohn’s hope for his own life: a ship sailing
into the future, representing a new start, a new course being navigated.
Dominique has cast several features from the building itself, in
white concrete mixed with marble dust. The resulting objects
have qualities which effectively contrast the smooth with the crystallised.
The cast objects include the clock that used to hang in the Pavilion’s
Edinburgh Room, a section of a door with a port-hole window, an air
vent, and a section of a table. Individually and collectively,
this miscellaneous assortment of objects symbolise and emphasise
the clean white lines, and the curves and the circles which characterise
the architecture of the building. The objects also carry with
them an awareness of what the De La Warr symbolised for Mendelsohn.
All the fixtures except the table are original, creating a juxtaposition
of the old with the new - a theme which is consistent throughout
Dominique’s work.
During her research, Dominique found in the Pavilion archive scraps
of elaborately embossed wallpaper that had been used throughout the
building in the 1960s. She has incorporated reminders of this
wallpaper into the objects she has cast. Also found in the
archive was a newspaper dating from 1936. Sections of a photograph
from the newspaper, depicting performers in the Pavilion, have been
enlarged and incorporated into the cast objects, giving these images
the effect of being scratched and worn.
Hattie Gordon 1997 |