Princes House - Crown Estate Princes Arcade

The Details

*Consultancy worked with The Crown Estate to commission Jesse Wine to produce a new permanent artwork for Princes House, in St James’s, London. This was Wine’s first large-scale public commission: a signature artwork for the central atrium, sited on a wall that spans five storeys.

Jesse Wine is known as one of the UK’s most exciting young ceramists working today. His ceramics are multifaceted and remarkably textured, formed entirely by hand and retaining an organic, crafted feel. Wine’s approach to glazing contains elements of chance, where his firing processes add shapes, forms and hues that are often not entirely predetermined.

Wine took the historic façade of the building as his inspiration, creating a large-scale ceramic wall installation. The fluidity and lightness of the drawn line makes subtle reference to the history of Princes House as the home of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and the intensity of the blue pigment is heightened by the pure white of the glazed ceramic tiles. These are cut by hand to further emphasise the drawn quality of the artwork. Overlaying the ceramic tiles and giving a sculptural form to the piece is the hand-formed ceramic foliage which drapes over the drawing of the old architecture, bringing new life to the building.