Fold — Cartoon Abstract Character, Hospital Garden, Lyon

The brief from the hospital trust was not about beauty. It was about dwell time: they wanted something in the courtyard that a patient would be willing to sit beside for twenty minutes.

The brief

One cartoon character, roughly 2 m, in the middle of a gravel courtyard. Curled or resting rather than standing. No likeness, and nothing that could be read as a person or as a religious symbol. The trust was clear that the piece had to be something you could ignore — which sounds like faint praise and is in fact the hardest brief we have been given.

A cartoon character that can be ignored

That requirement ruled out almost everything a cartoon character normally does. Brightness asks for attention; a grin creates a mood; a standing pose creates a presence. What was left was the same simplification we would use anywhere — an oversized rounded head, two simple eyes, a body folded into a soft rounded mass with a clear hollow through the middle — curled up at roughly the height of a seated person, so it reads as something resting rather than something watching. There is no front to it, and no detail anywhere for the eye to catch on.

The finish

Matte chalk-white paint with a fine visible texture under a UV clear coat — the one gloss piece we have made where we then took the gloss off. In a courtyard a glossy surface throws a hard highlight that follows you; a matte one only changes as the light changes. Over a northern European year that is the difference between a sculpture that always looks the same and one that is different every day.

Siting

Set directly on a low pale stone base in the gravel, off the main circulation line so it never has to be walked around, and placed to the north of the courtyard seating, which is where the light comes from for most of the day.

What it cost

Above 1.5 m, fibreglass surveys at $1,500–$4,900 for 1.5–2.0 m. This commission came in at $6,200 delivered and installed, eleven weeks from 3D approval.