Dulwich Picture Gallery

​ Jasmine Walsh IVM

Dulwich Picture Gallery Competition 
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Competition Brief:
To support emerging creative talent through the Dulwich Pavilion project and Gallery programme
To commission a new mural piece responding to the Gallery collection.
To offer engaging artworks which attract public interest and relate back to the Gallery’s collection.
To build audience awareness of the Pavilion and its key messages.
 
After a quick briefing at DPG, and visiting the space, I was instantly intrigued by how people ‘find’ or see themselves in Art and Galleries. With the Gallery aiming to become inclusive and enticing to a wider audience, I started to focus on a nostalgic feeling of how I saw galleries at a young age. With no one in Old Masters paintings looking like me, or mirroring any aspect of my identity, even as a woman, I wanted to create something that a younger generation would either see themselves in or not feel excluded from.
 
 
A majority of my inspiration for my piece was based on encouraging children, and schools to visit and be attracted to the Gallery more. This element would also bring in a wider audience, such as parents and teachers too. Wanting to use similar themes and thoughts as the Artists in the Gallery, I emerged myself into their manner of drawing women as well as plants, but interpreted this into a more modern style and one that is different from the ‘norm’. Recreating the aspects of old Renaissance paintings into a medium and style that is more familiar and comfortable with current society, this now being digital drawings.
 
 “The Colour Palace will be an inspirational space for everyone to find themselves in art – in line with the Gallery’s founding principles.”
 
The illustration itself:
 
As a majority of the Classical work in the Gallery is of landscapes or includes very detailed European landscapes, I focused on an illustration that takes imagery from Jungles and Forrest. This not only widens the subject matter than I could draw and include but would also work well alongside the themes of the new Pavilion that will be a major part of the hoardings location. With the Architecture of the new Pavilion using West African patterns and colour palettes, I wanted the illustrated hoarding piece to not draw away from this. Rather than distracting from the use of light from the new Pavilion, I wanted to add in another element of light.
With the fairly busy and 2D illustration, I considered an 3D element of having a moon, either made of LED lights, glow-in-the-dark paint or reflective paint that could use the light in the open space or add in another element of light. Alongside the bright and kaleidoscope like new Pavilion, this would create more interest to the piece. 
I took inspiration from the Gallery for the Moon as a lot of the pieces in the Galleries collection are of a darker colour palette, either form the ageing process or a reflection of the paint at the time. The Moon is also a key element of my piece, so as to play with another aspect of light that the Palace may not. 
 
It overall creates a more children’s book like piece, which would draw in interest from a younger audience and schools. 
 
Having a very Tanzanian/East African illustrative style, such as the large exaggerated nostrils and ambiguously coloured characters, I hoped that the piece wouldn’t make anyone feel unrepresented and instead be a fun outlook and subject matter for the Gallery.
 
 

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