#339: A Place to Reach an Understanding, or Sacred Gray

A round concrete building with a central octagonal domed part. Wood has been used throughout while moulding and setting the concrete, giving all the walls the texture, and appearance, of wood.  

Around the outside of the building is a wide colonnade with stone benches running the length of it on the inside.  The roof is a quarter arch, the floor a black and white chequered pattern.  This colonnade runs around the outside of the building starting from either side of an open foyer that stands before the entrance to the kitchen and library block at the rear.  It is held up by simple columns with semi-circle cut-outs between each one.

Between the colonnades, a triangular pediment rests above an open foyer, beyond which is the main entrance to the building.  Etched into the otherwise plain frieze under the pediment are the words: 

A Place to Reach an Understanding

This appears in both English and all local language(s).

A mosaic made up of shades of grey creating a horizontal gradient (from front to back) fills the floor of the foyer, with the colours getting lighter as they reach the entrance.

The entrance is made up of two grand wooden doors, one black and one white on the outside, each grey on the inside.  

Inside the door, a corridor runs around the central part of the building with the same flooring as outside and just as wide.  Benches run along both sides of the corridor.  To the left hand side the corridor ends at a cafe that serves food and drink from the surrounding areas.  There is also a door leading out to the gardens outside and outdoor seating for the cafe, the latter being both within the colonnade and in the open, depending on the weather.  

The floor immediately on entry is a mosaic containing the word welcome in all local languages.  The floor of the corridor leading to the gardens shows the flowers and foods of the local areas.

At the right hand end there is a library and archive and the main entrance into the main space (the kitchen, stores and library and archives are housed at the rear of the building with additional storage and administration offices underneath).

Straight ahead from the entrance, on the other side of the corridor, are oversized grey wooden doors.  These are false doors, an art installation called The Past - there is only wall behind them but they are designed to look operational.  The doors are mostly plain but have a series of square panels running across carved with pictures of an androgynous (in race and gender) figure being pursued by a spectre-like figure that gradually fades to a skeleton, then dust that blows away in the wind.  The figures are heading from left to right, the first one disappearing off the edge of the final panel.

Either side of The Past, on the walls of the corridor are directions to the main space, library, gardens and cafe on the walls.  

The corridor to the right has a floor with a simple mosaic in shades of grey broken up by the following words and phrases/text in darker grey on a lighter grey background in this order: 

Check yourself. What is on your mind?

Allow the bucket to be emptied. Listen.

This must be a safe space for all.

“That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”

Rebecca F. Kuang (2022) Babel, or the Necessity of Violence.

Then, finally, just before the entrances to the main space and the library:

“There isn’t a space for intimacy and immersion and nuance – really travelling into the grey…. And I think the grey is sacred. That’s where we can all meet each other.”

Dina Amer, quoted by Steve Rose (2023).

At the end of the corridor are two sets of grey wooden doors marking the entrance to the library and archives and the entrance into the central part of the building.  

The central section is an eight sided room within which are many round tables with seats all around them.  Above is a domed, glazed, roof.

Six works of art feature in this main room - a series called Sacred Gray.  #1 is on the wall opposite the entrance.  To the right the next section of wall is an exit that takes you to the coffee shop, and, beyond that, to the gardens.

To the left, the next three walls feature Sacred Gray #2, #4 and #3 in that order - while, to the right of the exit are #6 and #5 with the entrance taking up the last wall.  All are large artworks.

The artworks are as follows:

Sacred Gray #1 (Neutrality): A black and white photograph in portrait format, of an empty beach looking out to a shipless sea with a clear sky.  Each element (beach, sea, sky) takes up one third of the picture. 

Sacred Gray #2 (Everything): A tapestry divided into four equal parts that each depict a concept in shades of grey of something that everyone needs to live well.  These are: Home (somewhere to live) represented as a close-up of bricks and mortar, Food (something to eat) shown by a close-up of a slice of bread, Work (a job) pictured through a close-up of a coin and Leisure (spare time) seen as a detail from a clock face without hands.

Sacred Gray #3 (Everyone): A map of the world without any borders drawn with every country coloured in the same light grey with the sea a darker grey.  From the centre of each country is a grey piece of string (in between the shades of the land and sea) connecting it to the centre of every single other country arranged so that most of the world is obscured, even the poles and the Pacific Ocean at either side of the map. 

Sacred Gray #4 (The Future): Two large grey theatre curtains are drawn across the wall covering the same size area as The Past does on the other side.  What is behind the curtains is not fully known.

Sacred Gray #5 (Find me where we meet): Oil on canvas: Two overlapping circles are pictured on a white background - one is white, the other black but the section where they overlap is a mid-grey.  

Sacred Gray #6 (Onward travel): Oil on canvas: A dark grey background with a lighter grey icon on top - a version of the motorway symbol but the two lines come in from different points and join together as they cross the bridge (which appears vertically) and carry on together, side by side, on the other side of the bridge - although not in a straight line.

Outside, on the approach to the building is a paved courtyard but beyond the whole building, accessible by going through it, is a garden with paths leading to places to sit and talk or reflect, as well as flowers and trees from the surrounding areas, with the aim of having blooms and colour all year round as far as is possible.  

As you enter the garden, a plaque reads: 

“Gardens are a “common paradise”. They are there to be shared, to gather in, to converse in, to share ideas and to have a dialogue with those past and present. They are sites to feel inspired by, places of possibility, and, ultimately, to see the beauty of the world anew.” 

Katy Hessel (2024) quoting Olivia Laing (2024).

At the far end of the gardens is a gift shop and exit

The building is to be set up wherever there is a need for different peoples to sit somewhere neutral, or liminal, and talk things over until they can find a way forward by combining their colours into a new one.  Or by taking all that is black or white and making it grey.

Bibliography and Influences

Online resources

Forman, Lisa (2023) Dalí or not Dalí? The uncanny eye of Hiroshi Sugimoto – in pictures. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2023/oct/24/dali-or-not-dali-the-uncanny-eye-of-hiroshi-sugimoto-in-pictures?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other (Accessed: 24th October 2023).

Hessel, Katy (2024) The great women's art bulletin: Thrill me, hide me, restore me: what can we learn about artists from their gardens? Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/may/13/artists-gardens-niki-de-st-phalle-barbara-hepworth-st-ives (Accessed: 14th May 2024). 

Oltermann, Philip (2024)  The heavy hand of God: Europe’s brutalist churches – in pictures. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2024/mar/07/the-heavy-hand-of-god-europes-brutalist-churches-in-pictures (Accessed: 7th March 2024).

Rose, Steve (2023) ‘I buckled when I saw her remains’ – the biopic about ‘Europe’s first female suicide bomber’. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jan/25/europes-first-female-suicide-bomber-hasna-ait-boulahcen-paris-attacks-dina-amer (Accessed: 26th January 2023).

Sinek, Simon (2021) The Art of Listening Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpnNsSyDw-g (Accessed: 19th November 2025).

Books

Kuang, Rebecca F. (2022) Babel, or the Necessity of Violence. HarperVoyager, London.

Laing, Olivia (2024) The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise. Picador, London.

Artworks

af Klint, Hilma (1915) The Swan, No. 17. [Oil on canvas].  Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.  See: https://www.wikiart.org/en/hilma-af-klint/the-swan-no-17-1915-0 

Af Klint, Hilma and Unknown (2023) Model of The Temple, based on Hilma af Klint’s notebook drawings [Maquette]. See: https://www.tate.org.uk/documents/1844/TMEXH_0086_AfKlint_Mondrian_LargePrintGuide_web_aw_.pdf p.177 (Accessed: 3rd March 2026).

Atkinson, James (2023) #178: Work Together (A Socialist Tapestry). Available at: https://thehaberdasheryofimaginedart.blogspot.com/2023/06/178-we-should-work-together-socialist.html (Accessed: 5th March 2026).

Mark Rothko’s Colour field paintings.

Sobel, Janet (1945) The Milky Way [Enamel on canvas]. Museum of Modern Art, New York. See: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80636 

Sugimoto, Hiroshi (1997) Bay of Sagami, Atami, 1997 [Gelatin silver print, mounted on card]. Series, various collections.  See: https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/photographs/hiroshi-sugimoto-b-1948-168/253994

Architecture and Places

Gibberd, Frederick (1958-68) Fulwell Cross Library. Fulwell Cross, UK, TQ 44535 90315. See: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1391938?section=official-list-entry 

Gibberd, Frederick (1958-68) Fulwell Cross Leisure Centre. Fulwell Cross, UK. See: https://visionrcl.org.uk/leisure/fulwell-cross-leisure-centre/

Lasdun, Denys and Softley, Peter (1976-77) National Theatre. South Bank, London, UK, 51°30′26″N 0°06′51″W. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_National_Theatre 

Pope, John Russell and Smith, Sidney RJ (1897) Tate Britain.  Millbank, London, UK, 51°29′27″N 0°07′38″W. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tate_Britain 

Rothko, Mark; Johnson, Philip, et al. [Renovation (2020) by Architecture Research Office] (1971) Rothko Chapel. Houston, Texas, USA, 29°44′15″N 95°23′46″W. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothko_Chapel 

Sheppard Robson & Partners (1970) University Building, City St George’s, University of London.  Clerkenwell, London, UK, 51.5278°N 0.1023°W.  See: https://manchesterhistory.net/architecture/1960/cityuniversity.html 

Tsambika Beach, Rhodes, Greece.

#338: Amlodipine*

A calm stream flowing through a meadow.  

* alongside a change in diet and increased exercise.

#337: 184 over 110 and 186 over 111

Oil on canvas. A painting of turbulent waters running through channels cut by the water in a rocky terrain.

#336: The Diagnosis

A switch switching on and a lightbulb lighting up.

#335: Dioramas of Good Feelings

A shoebox diorama of a time when you felt really good.  To be kept alongside other such dioramas to be opened when you need that feeling to return.

#334: Guest Artist: Joseph Wright of Derby

“Two men forming a bar of iron in to a horseshoe - from whence the light must proceed… Out of this room, shall be seen another, in which a farrier may be shoeing a horse by the light of a candle. The horse must be saddled and traveller standing by… this will be an indication of an accident having happen’d, & shew some reason for shoeing the horse by candlelight - the Moon may appear and illuminate some part of the horse if necessary.”

From this excerpt from his notes, imagine the painting that Joseph Wright of Derby went on to create.  Then find the painting to see what he did and how it differs from what you imagined.

(Apologies if you already know A Blacksmith’s Shop)

#333: The Buffer (Conpartmentalising)

Ink on paper.  Drawing of my face in the middle of the paper.  

The following text is written all around it:

Around me is a buffer that protects me from the outside world.  It is not unlike The Filter and it allows me to know little about the world and live in my own way.  It gives me the ability to compartmentalise and forget everything, pushing it aside, below, or underneath the buffer.  But it makes me narcissistic and selfish, it stops me from connecting with other people and allows me to do terrible things, to have wrong beliefs.  It holds me back, it is a curse.  The buffer must be destroyed and I need to find a way to do this.  Or, at least, to bypass it.  I want it to be like a Magic Circle, that will protect and reaffirm. But it’s more like a protection circle of old, like in Waterhouse paintings and fictions from Battlefield to Renfield or a thousand others - a chalk circle, or a circle of powder, that keeps me in and everyone else away - creating a boundary that cannot be crossed, moved or eradicated.  Or like the empty and solid feeling from Beef.  Not real but there.  A stone keeping me still or driving me away, controlling or manipulating my actions.  I think I want to believe that this is the something that makes me creative.  But until it can be removed, the buffer will keep me separate and away, part of the world but apart from it.  I will live in this compartment until I find a way out of it, as if stuck in an escape room without a timer or a team (inside or out) to help me get out or to let me out.  I must find the tools - give, or lend, me the tools, please.  I want to blend.  I want to be able to talk to you.  I want to rub out all of this writing and remove this buffer, create a new work, create a new me.  I want to chill.  But around me is a buffer that protects me from the outside world.  It allows me to know little about the world and live in my own way.  It gives me the ability to compartmentalise and forget everything, pushing it aside, below, or underneath the buffer.  But… I am stuck within it.  Stuck in a circle.

#332: On being alone, being in groups, loneliness and belonging

A pentaptych of oil on canvas paintings.

The five paintings are arranged in the same manner as the dots on the 5-side of a six-sided die.  

1 - On the top left is a painting titled I’m Alive in Crowds I and II which is split horizontally into two along the middle and shows two similar scenes.  At the top is a football crowd in black and white all staring forward, fixated by the game unfolding in front of them.  One person, beaming, is marked out in colour.  

The bottom half shows a crowd at a music festival, in colour, seen from the stage, and shows everyone watching and enjoying the band on stage.  The same person that was shown in colour in the top half can be seen at the very centre. 

2 - On the top right is a painting, titled A Family Building, that shows a family sitting at a dining table and playing the game Carcassonne.

3 - In the centre is a painting of a bedroom, titled Alone.  A window can be seen in the wall to the left and a bed runs alongside it into the corner of the room.  In the foreground, next to the bed are four mismatching full CD towers with CDs stacked up in front and alongside.  By these, at the end of the bed is a large wooden record box on top of which is a glass of beer.  Next to the bed on the back wall is a bookshelf full-to-bursting with books as well as a hifi on top (the screen on the hifi shows the number 6).  Next to this in the other corner is a PC on a stand.  Along the right hand wall is a wardrobe.  The walls are painted navy at the bottom half, white at the top with a Tottenham Hotspur border in between.  On the back wall are three posters: the film poster for Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, a poster with a still from the train chase scene from the The Wrong Trousers and a football-themed Coca-Cola poster featuring the Football is not a matter of life or death, it’s more important than that quote from Bill Shankly.  Above the PC is a corkboard covered in a variety of ephemera including festival programmes on lanyards, newsletters, photos and drawings.  To the side of the PC on the right hand side wall can be seen a small slither of a poster advertising an Amnesiac listening event.

Throughout the painting the same person can be seen undertaking different activities: lying on the bed sleeping (a thought bubble showing their dream: a version of A Family Building where only the face of one figure is clear), sitting on a beanbag leaning against the wardrobe reading (Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake), sitting on the bed writing in a spiral bound notebook using a mechanical pencil, sitting on the floor in the middle of the room reading the liner notes of the CD being listened to (We Love Life by Pulp - on the floor next to them is the next one ready to go: This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours by Manic Street Preachers), sitting at the computer typing up an Imaginary Art piece (#328: Nothing fits like it used to fit), sitting at the near end of the bed watching a film on the (outside of the painting) television, their face lit up with the light from the screen, the reflection of what they are watching in their eyes (a shot of Gollum from the Mines of Moria scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), lying on the floor daydreaming (a thought bubble showing the dream: another life where they are a former footballer turned musician with a love life in an imaginary country).  

Scanning the painting would reveal another one underneath that shows the same room, much emptier, the bed across the back wall, a different wardrobe on the right and a young teenager playing with a train set in the big empty space.  A portable combined radio, CD and Tape Player close by with a copy of Oasis’ Wonderwall CD single lying next to it and the display of the player showing the number 4.

4 - At the bottom left is a painting titled I Drown in Crowds 2 of three people sitting together in a pub with drinks and empty glasses on the table in front of them.  The two on either side talk animatedly across the third who looks out at the viewer. 

5 - At the bottom right is a painting titled I Drown in Crowds 3 showing a family gathering in a sitting room.  People of all ages are shown milling about, drinking, talking and playing.  At the back, in an armchair, sits someone staring straight out at the viewer.

Not all of this is necessarily always true: it is an imperfect work.  Life is full of contradictions.  Sometimes the opposite will be true.  Often the biggest things are said in the fewest words (here, at least).  Alone can be lonely, or not.  Being with others can be lonely, or not, in all situations.  Sometimes one, sometimes the other.  More often than not.

#331: I Drown in Crowds

Oil on canvas.

A crowd scene with someone right in the middle, only just visible with only their face and arms showing.  Their arms are waving as if they are drowning and calling for help.

#330: Ruins have beauty

Find them, see it.

Everything does and everyone should.

#329: Whatever you want it to represent it shall be

A coffee cup (disposable).

Or

Take any item and assign it a meaning.  Use that meaning in daily life, art, stories, poems etc until it catches on and x will always mean y.  

#328: Nothing fits like it used to fit

A family photo in a frame with the title written above and below, “but so much fits so much better and so much fits that I thought never would.”

#327: Empty

A blank canvas.

#325: Déjà vu

Imagining something you have imagined before but had forgotten until now.

Or

An artwork resembling one you have imagined before.

For example:

#326: Desk (Self-portrait II XXI)

If your desk, or workspace, was an artwork, what would it say about you?

(I cleared and tidied mine in preparation)

#324: Hall of Records

Oil on canvas.  A painting showing a Hall of Records relating to you.  

At its entrance, you can be seen, sitting at a desk, acting as a gatekeeper to these records - a mass of shelves lined with books, records and other items.  

Beyond the desk multiple versions of yourself can be seen looking at or going through the records, which are ordered into different sections, each with a sign above the shelves.  

In a far corner is a door marked “Restricted Access”.

At the bottom of the frame is the inscription: “I need my memories. They are my documents. I keep watch over them.” - Louise Bourgeois.

#323: Let memories come to you

Oil on canvas. A medieval hallway scene painted in the style of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.  The scene flows through from a console table on the left to the open front door on the right but is set in two halves.  On the right, someone is answering the door.  At the door is a younger version of themself holding out a sculpture of a lightbulb to them.  On the left hand side, the same person is turning away from the door, reaching out to vases of dying flowers each filled with one of the following - rosemary, tulips, forget-me-nots, sweet williams and periwinkles. A runner on the console features a simple pattern containing buttercups.  

On the wall behind are several pictures, from left to right, including a spider with very long legs that go straight up giving it a tall appearance, a hand reaching out and being received by two open hands, a wire framed cage with a spiral staircase inside and a woman with a house for a head.

Along the bottom edge of the frame the following is inscribed: “I need my memories. They are my documents… You have to differentiate between memories. Are you going to them or are they coming to you? If you are going to them, you are wasting time. Nostalgia is not productive. If they come to you, they are the seeds for sculpture." - Louise Bourgeois.

#322: No Surface : All Feeling (3 Ideas)

Oil on canvas.

A painting of a naked, flayed person in the style of The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci - but with their eyes closed, grimacing, and with full colour and detail.

Or - Someone naked, and uncomfortable at their desk in a large open plan office.

Or - A canvas spilt into four equal parts: a scene of people praying in church, one of people walking through a winter scene, a flayed naked person, and, finally, a painting of someone asleep in bed, a representation of their dream on their forehead.

#321: Solitude

Oil on canvas.  Pictures of the solitude experienced at different times of life.  Some scenes show good times, some not so good, some bad, of people being alone on purpose and being alone, or isolated, without wanting to be.  Every side of solitude is shown: playing as a child - operating my train set, playing in the garden, kicking a football around pretending to be other people, walking to school through the park, all the dreams in my head, listening to songs, reading on a beanbag, writing in the University libraries, reading or listening to music or watching the world go by from the commuter coach and train, walking through London, listening to music in the car, reading on the sofa early in the morning, reading on the train, reading on the bus, working from home, living in Wing Island, a mother at home with a new born baby, a prostitute waiting on the street, a prisoner in a cell, a housewife working, a crane driver, a train driver, a lorry driver, an old person in a chair, an old couple sat together, one of whom does not remember the other, a person in a crowd,  ….

#320: Either ignore it or celebrate it (What is to be done?)

A collage of all the worst events and people in the world, both now and throughout history, underneath which are the following words:

'Either ignore it or celebrate it.' What a fucking futile attitude. Don’t say anything bad, just ignore it or celebrate it. So what about fascism then? We don’t like it, we’ll just ignore it.

(I ask you again what is to be done).

Nicky Wire, The Quietus and 30-Year War.

#319: You have to do the work to earn the rest

Oil on canvas.  A painting of a man in an armchair reading a newspaper.  Behind, his wife can be seen hoovering, making dinner, cleaning the windows, making tea, dusting and other jobs.