Cubicle Creations at Wahoo West Beach Brighton

To explain: below is what was written about the Cubicle Creations project in SQ Magazine http://sqmagazine.co.uk/

”Wahoo Brighton have scoured the region for 15 local artists to create artistic concepts for each of their toilet cubicles with £500 going to the best one. Want to know more?

Well, for the past few months, a swathe of local artists have applied and been whittled down to just 15 lucky entrants, who have been hand-picked to work throughout November and get their chance to showcase their talents to Brighton’s nightlife.

The project deadline has now hit – and the unveiling and judging will take place at Brighton’s First “Burn Your Dregs”, a night designed for Writers and Artists to get together and make something good.

All this and a live DJ thrown in too, Jakub Machal Mancal. West Street is getting cultured!”

So I saw the flyer for this in Clarkes Stationers in Brighton and decided to apply, and I was lucky enough to be accepted! Wahey/Wahoo!

As I am a digital artist and have a background in fine art, I was excited at the prospect of creating some work which got me away from the computer screen and coding! I was also really looking forward to having the free reign to do what I ever I wanted in that amount of space and without constrictions.

Here is the first wall done!

The tiles were made up of two designs I made then photocopied and mirrored to connect to each other.

The themes I am normally drawn to in my work are issues around gender and gender representation. With Polish heritage I often also incorporate folk art traditions, motifs and patterns, this also relates to my experiences of the clear gender roles in Eastern Europe and the folk art motifs are a nod toward this in my work.

For cubicle creations I wanted to create something that addressed the way in which women are used for advertising and on posters in toilets, the fact that these are always visually appealing or model like women. To counter act this bombarding of female ‘perfectionist’ imagery I wanted to give balance to this by having a cubicle with visually appealing, hyper masculine men in. I disembodied the images of the men to de humanize them and make them purely into representations of fleshy supposed attractiveness. The folk art flowers represent the female form and contrast against the harshness of the headless figures.

I have included the large figure of Arnold Schwarzenegger on the back of the door in a typical body builder pose, I use his form in much of my work as a sort of muse character. To incorporate a digital aspect I projected his form onto the door in order to paint it. I had also planned to have a small projection on the ceiling of my cubicle, a film which fit in with the style and themes of my cubicle, but disappointingly it didn’t come to fruition.

The front of the door is like a book cover hinting at what is inside.

I found the work space very calming and due to the size of the cubicle felt like I was in my own little world, stepping out to have a chat and enter another cubicle and world!

The comments of The Mayor of Brighton summed up the experience for me as he said that the project represented the diversity and ‘rock n roll’ persona of Brighton, especially as Wahoo is not necessarily the first place one would think of as hosting art, it symbolized the open mindedness of the city. I am always interested in changing peoples perception of art, and dislike the idea of people having to walk around a white space, silently contemplating the work. I love it when art is out there in the world for people to experience, with none of the elitist notions attached to it.