From empty marquee to lush garden, sculpture artist Nadim Chaudry takes us through the installation of SWATCH. Nadim Chaudry - sculptorSwipe / click to begin Day 1I spent today sorting through bags of scrap fabric and making a wonderful rainbow of colours. All the materials came from my Mum, who in her days as a tailor would save even the smallest scraps. Fun though this task was, trying to differentiate between various shades of the same colour became quite vexing on my eyes after a while! Day 2Next came the task of drawing the trees. I wanted to give them a magical, fairy-tale-like quality, as though they had come straight from the pages of a Grimm’s fairy tale. Translating a tiny maquette into a much larger design comes with its own challenges, not least of all working with a new set of materials, such as cardboard. I decided on three sizes in total: a small, medium and large. Day 3Once the trees had all been drawn, my next task was to embed them within a landscape. This was to be made from sheets of cardboard, angled at various heights to give the illusion of a fractured terrain. I decided upon three islands with sinuous paths to give a sense of discovery. Amongst the trees and busily at work is my trusted assistant Effy Harle. Day 4A joyous day: we fleshed out the landscape by painting in all the rainbow colours! This was especially enjoyable after working so long with just cardboard. Once the terrain was ready we could start to play with the fabric and choose how the colours would sit. Large sheets of cloth were applied first, to give us the broad brushstrokes, and then the piles of scraps were added later to give more detail and nuance. Day 5The work is complete! Welcome to ‘SWATCH’, my installation for Art in the Park, Milton Keynes. The installation was inspired by the Islamic concept of heaven as a garden. Buried within this landscape were also multi-coloured ponds and fountains, giving an overall flavour of Alice in Wonderland meeting a technicolour visual feast. The idea of a sanctuary and refuge was also at the heart of ‘SWATCH’ and pays homage to a global climate of mass migration and asylum. Nadim Chaudry is a sculpture artist. kashifnadimchaudry.com SWATCH was on display at Art in the Park, Milton Keynes. Produced by Milton Keynes Islamic Arts Heritage and Culture (MKIAC) - 2016. Arts PeopleVisual artsLink to Author(s): Nadim Chaudry Published: 25-07-2016 Log in or register to post comments