FINE ART STUDENTS COMMISSIONED TO PROVIDE ARTWORK FOR £22m LUXURY HOTEL
Thursday 1st June 2006
Three fine art students at Nottingham Trent University have received a massive boost to their fledgling art careers after being commissioned to provide public artwork for a £22 million luxury hotel. Marston Hotels launched the four-star Nottingham Belfry in February as the hippest and most stylish spa hotel in the region, and asked three Fine Art students from Nottingham Trent University to design original works based on the novels of D.H. Lawrence to hang in the hotel’s public spaces, which include Chatterley’s Bar and the Lawrence Restaurant. Gemma Cooke, Rosie Pickles and Laura Birkett, all aged 22, have created five works in a variety of media, inspired by The White Peacock, Sons and Lovers, The Plumed Serpent, Women in Love and The Rainbow. The three hope to graduate this summer with a BA in Fine Art. Rosie Pickles, from Burwell, Cambridgeshire, has created a work inspired by The White Peacock. She said: “The Nottingham Belfry has an exciting, contemporary feel so it’s great to have been involved in the project. I felt that a white peacock would be a striking image and developed a design which tied in with the wall colour in the restaurant. The pattern on the peacock’s feathers is quite complex so I felt it was important to keep the colour scheme simple. I used a range of materials to create the image, including acrylic paint, watercolours, varnish, pencil and beads. I wanted to contrast the simple colour scheme with a range of textures and surfaces, incorporating both matte and gloss finishes.” Laura Birkett, from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, has provided two works, The Plumed Serpent, which illustrates the tale of an Irishwoman who visits Mexico, and Sons and Lovers, Lawrence’s semi-autobiographical tale of the lives and loves of a Nottinghamshire mining family. Laura said: “As well as a love of art, I also have a love of reading, and it was a wonderful opportunity to combine the two in this project, specifically in the case of Sons and Lovers which has a strong family connection, as my mother’s family were miners and lived in a similar community.” Gemma Cooke, from Greatworth, Oxfordshire, has created two pieces, The Rainbow and Women in Love, painted as a pair as Lawrence originally conceived the two stories as one book but later decided to separate them. She said: “I chose to base my paintings around Lawrence’s detailed descriptions of the countryside. In today’s society, the countryside symbolises the ultimate ideal and escape. My work concerns the idea of utopia. I was interested in the commission from The Nottingham Belfry as the space is very modern and idealistic in a different sense. The paintings I produced represent very natural landscapes and I was excited to explore this contrast.” Hotel general manager Russell Waters said: “We were looking for art that was original, stylish and contemporary yet paid homage to the community and traditions of Nottingham. Gemma’s tribute to the novels of one of the city’s most famous sons treats our visitors to a fresh and exciting vision of Nottingham’s artistic past and present.” The Nottingham Belfry, in Mellors Way, Nottingham, is easy to find, close to J26 of the M1, less than four miles from the city centre, offering the ideal base from which to explore the city’s many attractions. To book, call The Nottingham Belfry direct on 0115 973 9393, Marston Hotels’ central reservations on 0845 1300 700 or visit
www.marstonhotels.comwww.marstonhotels.com. -ends- PRESS CONTACTS: For further information or photos, contact Leah Taylor or Jeff Sims at Edwards Harvey PR. Tel: 01622 604600 or e-mail
leah.taylor@edwardsharvey.comleah.taylor@edwardsharvey.com
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