Paradise Green is a stunning, expansive new hospitality venue in the City of London; with three cocktail bars, three restaurant zones and Private Dining Rooms under one roof. It’s the latest, most ambitious project from Daisy Green Collection owners Prue Freeman and Tom Onions. The pair are passionate art collectors, who also commission and install bespoke art within their venues – and for this site, one of the hero bars designed by Run For The Hills called “Sunset” – has been turned into a giant, original light-art-piece by renowned artist Justin Hibbs.
The bespoke light-installation was a complex collaboration which went through a long technical design and testing process. Starting life as an original bar design by interior designers Run For The Hills, their concept was then given by the Clients to artist Justin Hibbs to develop into a large-scale illuminated artwork, dubbed an immersive “Neon slice of Eden”.
The artist developed a range of designs which could work as a single layer across multiple panes. Artwork tests were layered into 3D models then developed technically in structural drawings by the main joinery contractor, before being fabricated off-site in modular parts. Mesh Lighting consulted on LED lighting specs and Imperial Integrated Systems consulted on the chosen stretch fabric lightboxes, then print-producing and installing final printed artwork. Levin Haegele was brought on by artist Justin, assisting with photoshop technics, compositing and scaling hugely heavy, media rich artwork files. Initial tests were set at 10% size, then ranging in size incrementally to make them more work-able. Final, full-size photoshop artwork was only possible once the structure was fully built on-site and surveyed for an accurate map of each box within the overall structure. Arcola assisted with final surveying of the as-built bar structure, allowing Justin to draw up the final artwork installation to 100% scale, across all light panels.
The process took place over 8 months; problem solving how the structural form needed to work, then finding a solution for creating a single image in 32 parts running seamlessly across the whole framework. The circle pattern and large sunset gradient allowed this, and neon edges were created around the inner seam of light boxes to create an overall impression of ‘perimeter’ lighting.
Justin’s artwork inspiration is rooted in visits to the Eden Project in Cornwall; with its magnificent tropical plant collections and vast geodesic domes, Bruno Tauts Light Pavilion, visits to tropical gardens in Latin America, @thepalmcentre London, ArtDeco skylight @earthhackney and the otherworldly sunset panoramas of the Maldives.
In a true-coming together of art and interior design, Paradise’s light-piece back bar’s colour palette pays homage to the sultry ‘Sunsets’ of Surfers Paradise in Australia. Making a truly unique and bold statement, pulsing and fading to create multiple moods and effects across day and night.
Paradise is the third Daisy venue designed by Run For The Hills, and the second featuring Justin Hibbs original art embedded within the fabric of the interiors, following his artwork adorning the semi-open kitchen of Bondi Green in Maida Vale.
