FOCUS 053
Left and below Myerscough’s A New Now, both on display and being developed in her studio, is designed to elicit communicative joy and to promote imagination
I had to show people I was doing the work myself, because as a woman people tended to think I couldn’t create these things – people are so conditioned about roles that they would often assume that Luke designed the structures for me.’
Her upbringing clearly inspires her legendary love of colour – a Bohemian family life, with a mother who was a textile artist and a father who was a classical musician, plus grandparents who were a French milliner and a violinist who had been brought up in a European circus, meant that home was always full of colour, music and life. But it was also a reaction to what lay beyond the front door. ‘London was pretty grey and grim in my younger days. I was surrounded by everything grey and so my love of colour is a response to the environment. I loved it when the fairground came to town on Bank Holidays and we finally saw some colour in the streets.’
boundaries, transforming urban environments with structures decorated with vivid neon colours. If she had her time again, graphic design might not have been her choice. ‘We were told that it’s really creative and you can do your own thing, but the reality is that you are always working for someone else within their limits. I wanted to push the boundaries and be involved in the whole project. I didn’t feel there was a space for me and it didn’t fulfil me.’ Te result was that, after a short stint working as a graphic designer, she set up Myerscough Chipchase (in partnership with Jane Chipchase) and, when that ended, she went on her own as Studio My-erscough and started pushing those boundaries for real.
‘I had my place, but I really didn’t like having a place at all – I wanted to be myself! When I started building structures, I wanted to show that because I had been working in 2D [it] didn’t mean I couldn’t do things in 3D.
‘When I started building structures, I wanted to show that because I had been working in 2D [it] didn’t mean I couldn’t do things in 3D’
Her latest projects connect back to childhood days. She recently created with the local community an incredible 12m-tall reimagining of a Roman gatehouse at Housesteads Fort on Hadrian’s Wall, called Te Future Belongs to What Was As Much As What Is, decorated with graphics panels of words ranging from ‘Desolate’ and ‘Surreal’ to ‘Central Heating’. All of the words were drawn from extensive workshops with the local community, and she is frustrated that some critics felt the word choices were merely trendy. ‘At Hadrian’s Wall, we engaged with loads of people. If you are inserting a piece of work into a strong community you want them to feel like it belongs to them, and the words came out of workshops where people talked about what the wall means to them, and about gateways and the Romans. Each word has a story. I was amazed when I visited Housesteads Fort as a little girl and saw the Romans had underfloor heating when we didn’t have any central heating at home, just a couple of stoves. Fuel poverty and having limited money stays with you all your life, and the phrase “Central Heating” was a huge conversation in the workshop group. I’m really pleased with the level of controversy and I’m glad I did the first building on Hadrian’s Wall for 1,600 years. Now, people have spent longer there and have a different view of history, and that’s healthy.’
Myerscough is currently working on a bandstand for Weston-Super-Mare as part of a Super Shrines art project to inject vibrancy into the high street. After that, she hopes to persuade an organisation that what they really want is a Chrysanthemum House. ‘I was working in Finsbury Park, where people used to go to take the air in Victorian days, and I saw that there used to be a chrysanthemum house there. It would give winter colour, and people would visit the colourful chrysanthemums and it would make them happier in the winter – that’s how colour uplifts you. I grew lots of chrysanthemums in the garden last year to look at the colours and photograph them, and I keep trying to persuade people to let me make it. If I don’t get any takers, I’m going to start building it in the garden to have my own first!’
GARETH GARDNER
THOMAS LANG
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113
