The Royal Opera House, Belfast
A shortlist of 2 to produce an engraved screen (2005).
This was a commission for an engraving onto a series of four doors which could open out to form a screening wall which would enable a large social area to be divided into a smaller one plus a small theatre.
My
idea was to illustrate the lines from Shakespeare's Tempest,
in which Prospero describes the insubstantial nature of
artistic creation, and of life itself.
Our revels now are ended. These our
actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.