Commissioned Paintings: A New Look for the Magnolia Meeting Room

Commissioned Paintings

A New Look for the Magnolia Meeting Room

The Small Business Research and Enterprise Centre, known SBREC, supports entrepreneurs and small businesses in London with workshops, one-to-one mentoring and access to business expertise. They are based at 80 Basinghall Street in the heart of the City, and for the past couple of years they have been supporting me with my own business development. It felt fitting, then, that our relationship should eventually find its way onto their walls.

The Brief

SBREC has several meeting spaces, one of which is the Magnolia Meeting Room. It is a generous space, but it sits below ground level and receives no natural light. With white walls, grey carpet, dark chairs, it was functional, but lacked warmth.

Wendy Foster, one of SBREC's business advisers, had visited my Elemental exhibition at the Chelsea Gallery on the Kings Road in March. She asked whether I could create a series of paintings for the room: something that brought in colour, warmth and the spirit of the Elemental collection, while reflecting the magnolia theme of the space itself.

It was exactly the kind of brief I love.

 

Finding the Inspiration

Magnolias were in full bloom when the commission came in, and I spent an afternoon photographing them in a Worcestershire garden. Their petals move from creams and pale pinks through to deep purples, and I began to imagine what they might look like reflected on the surface of gently moving water, surrounded by spring greenery and blue sky. And then, as I often do, I took that image a step further: what would the same scene look like from beneath the surface, looking up?

I wanted the paintings to echo the beauty of magnolia while bringing the essence of my Elemental Collection. That imaginative leap, from observation to something more immersive and unexpected, became the foundation for everything that followed.

The Paintings

The commission called for three works: two square canvases at 24 x 24 inches for one wall, and a triptych for another. I treated the triptych as a single cohesive piece from the outset, modifying two easels to hold all three canvases side by side so I could work across all three of them together and ensure the composition flowed without interruption.

I began each piece by sketching the composition lightly in pencil, then building up soft, translucent layers of colour as a base. Once those were dry, I switched to palette knives to introduce texture and movement. My collection of pallet knives includes one shaped like a gecko's foot and another not unlike a pizza cutter, and both earned their place on these paintings, helping me create marks that suggest ripples, reflections and the gentle movement of water.

For finer details I used pine needles dipped in paint, dragging them slowly across the surface to create delicate lines that sit somewhere between a brushstroke and a scratch. Sponges helped smooth and blend certain areas, softening transitions between colours.

Note: a triptych is a painting which consists of three individual pieces that together form a single cohesive painting.

 

I finished each piece with two coats of matte varnish. Given that the room is lit entirely by artificial light, a gloss finish might have created unwanted reflections and worked against the paintings. The matte surface keeps the colours rich and clear, and will protect the work from UV light and make it easy to clean in future.

 

 

 

The Delivery

I delivered the finished paintings to SBREC in April. Wendy unwrapped each piece carefully, laying them out on a large table to see them together for the first time. The Magnolia Meeting Room, once a perfectly pleasant but rather blank space, now has warmth, colour and feels welcoming. Which was exactly the point.

 

 

Wendy Foster unwrapping her commissioned paintings for the Magnolia Meeting Room

 

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