1. VITAL HARMONICS
GREGORY MACMILLAN
My Story.
In July last year, I broke my leg. A matter of some drama, and as might be imagined, a
transformative experience.
I had already been working with some ideas of art in health care. Any ideas I may have
had were instantly rendered purely theoretical, and the whole matter was suddenly
extremely real and acutely personal. Just like that.
Thank God for the NHS. We are lucky in this country. I was picked up from a field, in the
dark. I could have been anyone.
I was then four days a guest of the NHS, at the local hospital. A good one, a good size,
and which we may take as an example, in the dialogues on art which follow.
I had gotten off very lightly. I had broken my fibula only, a nice clean break. There were
no complications. But I had never broken anything before, never been in a hospital,
never had an operation. I chose to remain awake for the operation. The excellence of
that part of the process is beyond praise. It was a genuinely uplifting experience.
But then you realise, I cannot move. I cannot stand up.
2. All our basic human understandings are wrenched at that moment, of who you are and
what you can do. Here you are with all your fine ideas. I recognised however that I was
in an ideal position to observe and gain an understanding of the reality, without
preconceptions, and from the patient's view.
Perforce, I set out to comprehend and appreciate the texture of the thing, as an art and
design study, as a technical exercise. I took the opportunity to converse with everyone
available; senior doctors, the nurses, other patients, on the subject of art in healthcare. I
took careful note of the architectures, the spaces and transitions. The absolutely
different experiences of patients and staff. The sheer stress. A million miles from a
design office or an art consultant's screen. The front line.
Here we find another sort of space, and mind-set. If one was to make an art which could
be noticed or appreciated here, it must be shaped for these spaces and that mind-set. It
must be consciously directed, as its art motif, toward a postive intention, to make any
headway at all.
Re-learning to walk was another evolutionary adventure; hobbling on crutches, the
walking wounded. Classic, profound human experiences: how many have thus hobbled
over the centuries? How The World goes its own way, and one is, at the same time,
both a non-person and an object of peculiar attention. One is in the way. Sorry. Excuse
me.
But then I was only a visitor, a tourist in this reality. Not long-term. Not permanent. The
stages of standing upright again, gradually re-joining the human species. I applied to it
proactively, with vigour. Research into the anatomy, biophysics, structures. Every yogic
technique I could utilise, the flow of energy, balance, evenness, straightness. Walking
without a limp.
The whole process, of course, took months. But it has left something, as well as a piece
of titanium in my leg.
What people go through. Mine was the most trivial, the simplest problem in trauma
injury, in which Western medicine is expert. What about the crippled, the chronic? What
about the unbalanced? What about the stress?
So, the experience has left me with two things.
First, the overwhelming need for effective emotional reassurance. The acutely solitary
nature of the experience. A feeling, which I cannot describe, and had not experienced
before, about all the people who use the healthcare system, and what they actually go
through. Dare I say a little compassion..
Secondly, some idea of the technical design needs for an art in healthcare, and some
3. notions of how one might go about it.
MOTIVATION
What is art for? That art should have some public utility is embedded as deeply in our
cultural expectations as the idea of unobtainable, rarefied exclusivity.
Art intended 'for the public benefit' has a varied history, and it has come in and out of
fashion. Diego Rivera in the 1930s or the Russian Constructivists in the 1920s were
crucially of the moment at that time, and their ideas are still current, are enshrined in the
fabric of public art commissioning practice. We are very lucky in our times. There is
much Public Art. There is however no real consensus of purpose, and this void is often
filled by such a variety of ostensible purposes as to become a diffused and meaningless
gesture. As we have all seen.
To find a way to turn art to the service of the public good in today's context, today's
climate is probably quite the most important task that a contemporary artist could
undertake, given that we live at this crucial point in the history of our species.
ART IN HOSPITALS
I became aware of the large scale art commissions which feature in major projects in
health care several years ago. Substantial commissions, often integrating with
architecture. Nice big pieces in the atrium.
I applied for a couple, enough to become familiar with their typical shapes and usual
commissioning structures, the trends in stated purpose. Who, really, are these projects
for? Who is the real audience? The commissioning body themselves? The patients?
Families and visitors?
In the actual reality of the thing, everyone is usually far too preoccupied. Everyone is
here for a reason. Most do not want to be here. Resigned to it.
How could you 'think about' a piece of art?
These large art pieces are often splendid things in themselves. A credit to their makers,
and at the least are interesting to be around and to look at. But perhaps their actual
influence is ephemeral.
The other side of the atrium, the working spaces of waiting rooms and corridors and
wards, is randomly served by an assortment of cheap prints, perhaps meant to be
relaxing; pebbles, a nice sunset. Perhaps something from the local schools. Perhaps a
local artist's favourite view, in watercolour. Perhaps something sponsored by a local
business. All charming, and carrying meaning for the people who put it there. And it is
passed by a population of perfect strangers, most of whom are in emotional need. It is
not very coherent, nor directed.
4. BRINGING IT UP TO DATE
Before Christmas last I applied for a Public Art project being tendered for the Sheffield
Children's Hospital. Preparing my bid brought many elements together in what would
seem to be needed to bring an effective art into the health care environment.
What would be requisite to see such a project through to the real world?
How to frame a project whose stated object is to impart a sense of health and wellness?
Does one continue to try and bend the concept around the brief? Or is not Vital
Harmonics a strong, viable conceptual basis in itself, with sincerity and an inherent
connection with truthful principles? Something which genuinely ought to happen?
So, I have applied myself to framing a rounded project.To set this compelling idea in the
right ways, that it is acceptable, that it could navigate successfully through the sea of
influences, expectations, prejudices, conflicting strategies which are at play in both the
art and medical contexts.
Its nature is fourfold. It is an Art project. It is a Scientific and Medical project. It is a
Business project. And finally, it is a project for the Public Good.
I hope it will be seen that it has purpose, truth and validity, seen in all of these lights.
5. BIOGRAPHY
I must then establish some bona fides.
Modern sales practice asserts that one buys the person not the product. Also, as they
say, one buys the sizzle and not the sausage. This is certainly the era of the impressive
C.V. Whether or not the following actually is a C.V., you will be the judge. I have
included what I hope are the relevant threads which have led us to this point.
..................
I have pursued an independent course in art. I am a freelancer. Much of my work has
been quite public, including Public Art. Serving a large audience has always been a
motivating factor in my work.
6. Currently, I feel I am doing valid and innovative work, which could develop into
something quite special, in the specific areas of digital creation utilisied in this project.
Perhaps the only pertinent questions are 1. Has he accomplished anything significant?'
and 2. Is he capable of doing what he suggests?
To both of these, very humbly, I must avow.
Question 3: Is he famous?
Well, we shall see.
I am an artist and designer of many years experience and well-practiced in several
disciplines. Proceeding from traditional drawing and painting through digital stills and
digital video, to motion graphics and CGI, to web design, sound design and music. And
some sculpture. And some journalism.
Some idea of a legitimate digital manner of art developed in writing a series of articles
for CGI Magazine, a significant publication which was effectively the house organ for the
Soho-based motion graphics industry at the time. (ca.2000-2). These 'think pieces'
suggested some directions that 'computer art' might go, beyond entertainment and nice
architectural renderings.
This is an art form whose only limitations are preconceptions.
That digital art can be infinitely round, soft, and velvety as well as sharp, angular and
glaringly bright. This has directly shaped the direction of my digital work since, which
people have always described as 'organic'.
LARGE MURALS
Before working in digital media, I pursued an extensive practice as a painter, over more
than a decade (late '80s-through the '90s-early 'noughties), in large format figurative
works These works were in a traditional figurative and classicist manner, delivered
nationwide in a variety of contexts; private, commercial and civic. This had become an
established career path. Large projects. Top end clients.
10. Boodle and Dunthorne , The Scatterer Of Stars
The above is an original allegory (set in a modern context), an hommage to the great
Classcist tradition, in the manner ofTiepolo. Below is another allegory, but rooted in
History, for the Grosvenor Museum, Chester (which city is my base).
Mural painting of course is one of the great artistic accomplishments of the West. I have
always felt honoured to walk in the footsteps of the masters, to work with large
architectural features and with an expansive sense of scale.
Civic Project, The Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Celebrating the deep history of Chester's Roman past,
as Deva, and to frame the Museum's unique collection of memorial stones.
11. The Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Painting extends around the room, some 120 ft.
I was engaged in digital art fairly exclusively from the early 2000s until 2013, when I
executed another couple of large and interesting pieces.
13. Conservatory, No 1. Cavendish Road, Chester
The classicist and figurative interest continues to evolve, and I endeavour to develop a
manner which successfully integrates the figurative and the digital.
ABSTRACT ART
I have gone into a little depth with a concern with the figure in order to emphasise that I
feel myself to be an artist somewhere in the broad stream of the Western tradition. That
tradition then begat Abstraction, which is something that even our modern sensibility still
has some trouble getting to grips with.
I feel myself to be an Abstract artist as well, concerned with the fundamental act of
perception, and with making an art more to partake of the essence of a thing than to
represent it directly.
As examples of inspiration and influence I must mention Kandinsky, whose journey from
the figurative to abstraction demonstrates a wonderful evolution, and the Russian
Constructivists in the early 1920s. They combined an unremitting scientific rigour in the
vision itself (eg the Black Square) with a deep concern with the social utility of art and in
bringing it to the masses. This ethos became part of the conceptual fabric of the
Bauhaus school, thus influencing the entire world of fabricated objects as we find it
today.
I feel that many of the questions posed then remain unaswered.
DIGITAL ART
Parallel with my practice in large format paintings, I discovered the rapidly-emerging
power of 'digital art' and with the rise of practical tools in the later '90s, I eagerly delved
into the potentialities of these new media.
There was a revelatory moment, in a video production studio in Cardiff in about 1993. I
was working on a production for broadcast (The Gododdin, Welsh epic) originating
graphic material. I had the chance to properly play with a classic early machine, a
Quantel Paintbox. It did layers, like Photoshop. Great fun. British, and well before
Photoshop.
The freedom of visualising something and seeing it come to life instantly before your
eyes was exhilarating. It seemed altogether the future of art, and I felt I had to immerse
myself in it. The whole field rapidly mushroomed of course.
I did much commercial work, initially in graphics, developing into work in moving-image
media; short films, motion graphics, CGI, and large scale video projections. Each of
which is a story in itself. I will also mention again my spell as a jounalist, writing pieces
for CGI magazine: this extended over about 18 months (early 'noughties), under four
different editors, where I learned an enormous amount about the industry (and a bit
14. about joiurnalism), and where I had the chance to at least speculate as to what may be
digital art's true nature or potential.
I have attempted to work from first principles, looking to use digital media with the same
fluency and freedom as one might work in
oils.
CGI animation, Home 'superclub', Leicester Square, London. Commission.
16. Shape and colour working in harmony with the architectural form.
DESIGN FOR THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Integral with my work in large scale painting, I did much design work in real-world built
projects. As a Designer, I have produced schemes using such elements as wood,
stone, tiles, metals, glass, mirror, lighting treatments, as standalone objects or within
comprehensive whole-room developments. These projects covered several different
markets: private, commercial and civic.
18. End of corridor painting (12ft.h.) with lift treatment. Atlas.
19. Entrance desk/foyer/ steps/ramp complex, reflected in mirror (10ft wide, in two parts)
FIGURATIVE ART REPRISE
My concern is with contemporary art. I am a contemporary artist. What is a
contemporay artist? And what has happened to the human figure, the central interest of
Western art?
My original interest was in figurative art.. Figurative art subscribes to a humanistic
tradition in considering the primary focus in art to be the human experience. It is how we
see ourselves, know ourselves. How, in the West, this motivation has resulted in
practice centred upon the scientific rigour of geometric perspective and classical
anatomy.
The study of anatomy is clearly a lifetime effort. There is a correlation between the
biomechanical structure and fabric and an expressive instrument of exquisite and
infinite subtlety. Inevitably, one is led to the question of Design.
21. Magdalen
This Design is a thing of wonder and beauty. It is present in every aspect of our physical
nature, in our evolution as a primate species.
One begins by representing the thing. one proceeds to trying to represent the motions
and energy of these forms. Then one is led to try and understand the principles behind
those lines of energy.
22. Bound Angel 2014 Digital original based on hand drawing.
The other side of this concern is the union of this body with the spirit which moves us.
Some would say the divine, but we may leave it at Animate Life and the vital energy
which enables it. We may strive to touch upon this level, in visual art, I believe..
25. Parsvottanasana again. 'sculptural' treatment.
SUMMARY OF ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT
My art is not really an art of ideas. There are some ideas, but they are simple ideas and
optional to the viewer. You can think if you want to, but I want you to feel. You can think
after.
I want to make contact with the viewer directly. The art is a vehicle for the exchange of
energy. My interest is in accessing deeper levels of experience itself, in the raw, of
energy and of form, so that they can be felt. My artistic concern is with light itself; its
frequencies and vibrational effects. How this light interacts with our physical bodies is
really where the point of interest lies. Its effects are physical: mental and emotional That
light is the vehicle for meaningful information, for meaning. To convey meaning is the
purpose of art. as far as I can make out.
26. This principle is integral to the Vital Harmonics project.
The specific and stated object of the Vital Harmonics art work is to make you feel well.
My intention is to create a feeling of wellness and enable you to access it. A simply
stated clear and single purpose.
This in itself should clearly diferentiate it from most other art, whose motives are
various: which may be intended to make you think, to be challenging or edgy, appealing
to familiar references to be pleasant, or even to be 'relaxing'.
My intention is stronger than that. I want you to actually feel uplifted. I am using every
device of art that I have at my command to produce this effect. Whether it is done well
or ill, whether it accomplishes this goal, every person who sees it will doubtless have
their very own opinion. But that feeling of well-being is the intention, the bottom line.
Something warm rich, sincere, and heartfelt.
Gregory Macmillan
February 2015
109 Whitchurch Road, Chester CH3 5QD
07816 330 873
ateliersublime@gmail.com
facebook/gregory macmillan
