Glasgow Hillhead Station Mural

We were commissioned by Scottish artist and writer, Alasdair Gray to work on an ambitious project to create an impressive Ceramic Tile Mural for the Glasgow Hillhead Subway station, which was being renovated by the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport as part of a regeneration scheme to prepare the transport infrastructure for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

 

With strong links to the Hillhead area and Glasgow’s West End, Alasdair Gray was the ideal candidate to capture the very essence of the locality in a creative, yet dynamic way. The artwork within the ceramic tiled mural was based on a view of Hillhead created by fellow artist, Nichol Wheatley, on an advertisement panel for the now defunct Grosvenor Cafe.  Gray borrowed the ideas from Wheatley’s work and created a more complex design, which evolved into the finished masterpiece.

 

The custom ceramic tile mural, a work of art which now dominates the main wall of the refurbished station, is a detailed, panoramic sweep of the West End area, from Byres Road, looking east towards the centre of Glasgow.  The ceramic tiled mural showcases well-known landmarks such as Glasgow University, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Hillhead Library and the Botanic Gardens.  Once the design had been finalised, Gray, along with Wheatley and his team from Perfect Circle Art, worked on developing a pioneering method of working with ceramic tiles to deliver the artists vision.

The project was our most complex work, drawing on our many years of experience in the ceramic decorating field.  Our company was chosen by the artist to supply the tile transfers for the ceramic tiled mural and we worked very closely with the with the Perfect Circle Art Team to produce a very precise detail in both the scale and colour of the tiled mural artwork.  In order not to detract from the artwork, which illustrates complete buildings and individuals, each uniquely formed tile had to be shaped and cut individually. This resulted in a large ceramic jigsaw (as captured in the photograph below) rather than a standard piece of repeated tiling.

In order to produce the transfers to fit perfectly, each hand-cut porcelain tile set new standards in terms of accuracy and fit as well as in the consistency of fired colour for digital ceramic technology.  It is thought that digital ceramic transfers had never before been utilised on this scale, making it a major coup for our company; knowing that this work will be seen by thousands of commuters on a daily basis for years to come.  The project, unveiled on 16th September 2012 and which took over two years to complete, has become a landmark of the city’s underground network and continues to delight the public and workers alike.

 

SPT Alasdair Gray mural from SPT on Vimeo.

Further information about the Hillhead Mural can be found on BBC News.

Client: Strathclyde Partnership for Transport

Artist: Alasdair Gray

Project Manager: Nichol Wheatley for Perfect Circle Art

If you are interested in commissioning a Ceramic Tile Mural for any interior or exterior space, please contact us to discuss how we could help.