Harry Butler Research Centre - Percent for Art Scheme

Government of Western Australia - Percent for Art Scheme

Western Australian Museum - Collections and Research Centre Upgrade 2016

Artists Margaret Dillon, Penny Bovell and Eveline Kotai drew upon the iconic imagery of the Western Australian Museum’s Collections and Research Centre to create the facility’s artwork. The artwork is integrated into three main areas of the facility, creating a conversation between the pieces and the Museum’s collections that both compliments the facility and reflects its philosophy of openness, growth and progression.

A shallow relief pattern of ‘dots and dashes’ on the building’s northern façade echoes the Museum’s process of ‘collecting’. The motif is based on the design of a generic set of drawers – the common storage system within the Museum. This visual dynamic created by the coloured dots references the colour coding that identifies different departments, collections or objects within the Museum’s storage facilities. 

During a one-week residency at the Collections and Research Centre, the artists searched and collated imagery of specimens and artefacts that they considered relevant and graphically suitable for the facility. This imagery was integrated into the external southern façade as a relief texture in the concrete inserts and translated onto the internal glass walls.

Acknowledgements

Artist: Margaret Dillon, Penny Bovell and Eveline Kotai
Title: ‘The Open Drawer” and “Menagerie”
Architect: JCY Architects and Urban Designers
Art Coordinator: Alison Barrett
Photography: Brian Smyth Photography
Client: Department of Culture and the Arts (DCA)
WAM Representative: Diana Jones, Executive Director, Perth Museums and Collections Finance Project
Delivery Managers: Christopher Rologas and Marie Dornan, Department of Finance
GPS Coordinates: -31.9849699, 115.9330379

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