Visit Moxy Bristol’s Artwork!

A bold and ultra-local programme of public art is a distinctive part of the new Moxy Bristol hotel, which highlights the creative palette of the local St Paul’s neighbourhood. Bricks worked with Moxy Bristol and local community members to commission works by Lawrence Hoo and Charles Golding, Dr Myles-Jay Linton, Bo Lanyon and Lucas Antics.

The commissioned artworks celebrate the culturally rich neighbouring communities in St Paul’s, along with the rich history of the site itself.  The programme responds to the historic moments that the site and local people have witnessed, whilst looking ahead to the future and what that might hold for the area and those who use it.

Bricks worked with a local commissioning group made up of the developer, Bristol City Council and local community members LaToyah McAllister-Jones and Marti Burgess, to shortlist submissions and to support the selection of the final commissions. Bricks then worked alongside the artists and the site developers to see the artworks installed.

ARTISTS AND COMMISSIONS

We are pleased to announce the following artists have created artworks for the programme:

Lawrence Hoo and Charles Golding

Jewels of St Paul’s

Lawrence Hoo is a poet and educator based in Bristol. His work is known for throwing a powerful light onto the overlooked experiences of those living in Bristol’s under-supported communities. It also evokes the inspiring, under-celebrated histories which are the inheritance of Bristol’s immigrant communities.

Charles Golding is a designer who creates narrative-driven immersive design. He is a dynamic art director, proficient in taking concepts from inception to completion, with a skill-set covering live action direction, 3D motion graphics, and sequencing. Both artists have worked together on multiple projects, including founding CARGO Movement and https://peoplesplatform.co.uk/.

The artists have produced a mixed media piece set in the ground floor windows of the Moxy Bristol Hotel. Four jewelled shapes are cut into the windows, overlaid with a poem dedicated to St Paul’s and its people. Through the windows, a series of modular diamond shapes hang, cut from shards of printed Perspex to create a three dimensional sculpture featuring photography by Khali Ackford. As the viewer peers in, a combination of lights and mirrors reflect their own face back through the artwork, situating them in both St Paul’s and the artwork itself.

The gem symbol weaves through the piece, speaking to similarities in the ways both communities and precious jewels are forged through pressure over time. For St Paul’s, this compacting and layering of cultures has created a strong, nuanced and diverse community with many facets. The artwork invites reflection and approach from multiple perspectives, with return visits providing different experiences depending on lighting, angle and positionality of viewing, colour changes and different processes of refraction.

The artists have also produced an audio accompaniment to the permanent work, with recordings of interviews with local residents set alongside a reading of the window poem. This can be found here.