Zen Garden, West Middlesex Hospital

Artists Bill Hudson and Jill Newman were commissioned to design and construct some permanent artwork for the quiet located next to the stroke patients’ ward, which is towards the back of the West Middlesex Hospital.

100 volunteers from BSkyB and a local secondary school would spend one day on site in the garden with Art in the Park artists creating the paint, print, textures and varnish finishes to each one.

The artists made designs inspired by Japanese Zen gardens which are intended as meditative spaces. They also looked at details of Japanese painting and created shapes based on waves, boulders and sunrises and trees natural and organic.

The wood was then cut and sculpted in advance at the Art in the Park studio. Each piece is made up of many elements which fit together to make up the larger form. This enabled us to have so many people working on them on one day.

 We also used a layering technique: using glazes in the acrylic paints to give translucency so that each layer of painting and printing is visible through the top layers.  The printing was done with simple string stamps and made wonderful patterns and textures. There are three separate 3D sculptures and 2 screens.

The hospital subsequently commissioned planting and gravel surfacing to surround the pieces.