The commission entitled Tessella has been designed by Dewsbury based visual artist Saba Rifat who has taken inspiration from the historical and urban brickwork, paving, stain glass windows and stone carvings in the town centre. Saba also worked with design students from Kirklees College to form ideas as well as holding engagement events for the general public to get involved.
Work is due to start at the end of October located in the underpass under Rishworth Road as part of the Dewsbury Creative Town Arts Programme.
Tessella, which is a feminine Latin word to describe square tiles of stone, glass which are used in mosaics, was employed as the process for generating design ideas to create the surface pattern for the underpass walls.
Once complete the installation will include 3,000 tiles to create a bright and uplifting environment for passers-by to experience. The tiles will be placed on top of the existing artwork in the underpass which was created by Kirklees College students several years ago.
Artist Saba Rifat said
“This commission has been a huge undertaking but I’m excited to see the final design in situ later this month. The design process for this project has been extremely methodical and time consuming as well as intuitive and fun so it will be very rewarding to see the finished piece.”
Images from the completed installation coming soon!