West Winter Garden

In 2001, Brian Clarke collaborated with architect Cesar Pelli for the West Winter Garden at Canary Wharf, a project that was part of the Heron Quays development, located opposite the Underground station.

For this unrealised artwork, which Clarke envisioned as a total environment, the artist devised a glassmaking technique which involved ¼-inch-thick glass layers and enamel glass paint permanently ‘fired’ at a very high temperature onto the raw glass in the kiln. This process produced a characteristic dot form, reminiscent of the ink pin-dots used to reproduce photographs in newsprint. The three layers of glass Clarke employed in this project, painted black, yellow and blue, are also suggestive of the colours used in 4-colour lithography.

A selection of sample panels for this project were exhibited at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in the 2002 show Transillumination.