It is a great pleasure to dedicate today’s Tile Addict to the work of my old school friends from Magdalen College School, Julian Opie. When the Hamilton Princess Hotel & Beach Club in Bermuda commissioned Julian to design a 13 metre long installation for its marina, he designed a frieze featuring his signature stylised figures in patinated bronze inlaid into Antalya Cream limestone. Julian turned to stoneCIRCLE to create the artwork for him, as the firm had previously worked with him on his installation at the CitizenM, Tower of London Hotel.
The figures were 5mm thick and are inlaid flush with the surface of the limestone blocks. They were cut out on stoneCIRCLE’s waterjet cutter and patinated in the Basingstoke factory. The limestone was cut on the Omag machine and the bronze glued in before shipping. Each panel was bonded to lightweight honeycomb for strength and to reduce weight, notwithstanding that the biggest panels weighed 230 kg.
The finished panels were loaded into a bespoke crate and shipped by sea freight to Bermuda. Barry Woodley and Steve Vanhinsbergh then flew out to Bermuda to install them in five days before returning to the UK.
A new post by Joe Simpson, Diary of a Tile Addict, June 2018.