Three major bodies of work titled Bioglass Implants and Face Corsets, Project Facade, and Papaver Rhoeas, each funded by The Wellcome Trust, have emerged as a result of Paddy and Ian's collaborations over the past 15 years and have been exhibited at major international museums and institutions.
Bioglass Implants and Face Corsets, 2002–3
Paddy and Ian's first collaboration was on the Bioglass Implants and Face Corsets project which began as an invitation from the Victoria & Albert Museum to create commissioned work for the event Short Cuts to Beauty.
The event gathered scientists, artists, surgeons, models and beauty editors to present a series of pop up events throughout the museum, examining cultural attitudes to beauty and the way in which we change our appearance both temporarily and permanently. Paddy created a series of facial garments, called 'face corsets’, designed to reconfigure the soft tissue of the face in the same way a corset shapes the body. In his desire to incorporate commercially available facial implants into the face corsets, Paddy teamed up with Ian, whose groundbreaking work with Bioglass as an implant material became a focus of their collaborative partnership.
Drawing on Paddy’s training in ceramics and experience in wax casting, their collaboration resulted in techniques of producing patient-specific implants for the repair of bone injury and defects in the face. Supported with a Wellcome Trust People Award, the project was a landmark in science and art collaborations and an example of how an artist and scientist can combine to create devices with a direct clinical/patient benefit.
Since creating his face corsets, Paddy’s facial garments have found an entirely new audience in the fashion industry. He has created face corsets and garments inspired for Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Noomi Rapace, shot by fashion photographers including Nick Knight, Rankin and Tim Walker. His work features regularly in fashion publications including Vogue, W Magazine, V Magazine and Garage Magazine and can be seen at www.patrickianhartley.com.
Collection images:
GLIMM EPISODE IConcept and styling: Patrick Ian Hartley and Catherine DayPhotography and post production: Catherine DayAll garments: Patrick Ian HartleyModel: Victoria Lindsay Coutts
SharpConcept: Manual Vason and Patrick Ian HartleyPhotography: Manual VasonModel: Patrick Ian HartleyPVC face corsets: Patrick Ian HartleyPost production: Manual Vason
RennConcept: Catherine Day and Patrick Ian HartleyPhotography: Catherine DayModel: Little TwigletSilk face corsets: Patrick Ian HartleyPost production: Catherine Day
Exhibitions
December 2011 - March 2013, In Your Face, Curated by Nick Knight, SHOWstudio, London.
November 2010 - March 2011, Alter Nature, Z33, CIAP & the Fashion Museum, Hasselt, Belgium.
October 2004, Future Face, Wellcome Trust Exhibition, The Science Museum, London.
April 2003, Digi-Monde, Contemporary Art & Science Exhibition, Orleans House Gallery, London.
April 2003, Bodily Alter(c)ations, Macquarie University Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
October 2002, Short Cuts To Beauty, The Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Published Work
2017
See Yourself X, Blackdog publishing.
2016
Feature interview by Penny Claydon in Text, The Textile Society, Vol:43.
Otherworldly, edited by Theo-Mass Lexileictous, Sven Ehmann and Robert Klanten, Gestalten.
2015
Paddy Hartley: Of Faces and Facades, edited by David Houston Jones and Marjorie Gehrhardt, Black Dog Publishing.
Face Politics, Jenny Edkins, Routledge.
2010
Art + Science Now, Steve Wilson, Thames & Hudson.
2008
Featured Artist in Draag je Emoties fashion special by Aynouk Tan, De Pers.
Contemporary Textiles: The Fabric of Fine Art, edited by Nadine Monem, Blackdog Pub.
Skintight: An Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery, Meredith Jones, Berg Publishing.
2007
Beyond Prescription: Connecting Medicine, Culture and Research, LCACE Publishing.
2006
Diagnosis Art, exhibition catalogue, Kunst Ahlen Museum Publishing.
2005
Extreme Fashion, C Smith and S Topham, Prestel.
2004
Future Face, Professor Sandra Kemp, Wellcome Trust Publishing.
'Blueprint Magazine: Masked by Nature', Remi Abbas, Blueprint Magazine.
Face Corset/Bioactive glass implant feature article by Mark Henderson, The Times.
2003
‘Treat Yourself’ review by Colin Martin, The Lancet.
‘Nip & Tuck’ Artist Story: Face Corset & Bioglass Implant feature, AN Magazine.
2002
Artist & Face Corset feature, Metro, London.
Broadcast Coverage
TV feature on Face Corsets & Bioglass implants, ‘London Tonight’ on ITV, 13 December 2004.
Live TV interview on Face Corset & Bioglass implants project, ‘TODAY’ on Channel 9 Australian National TV, 23 April 2003.
Panel discussion on The Face Corset Project, ‘The Deep End’, Radio National, ABC Australia, 28 April 2003.
Item on Face Corsets & Bioglass Implants, 'Material World’ on BBC Radio 4, 3 April 2003.
Associated Events
2009
'Cosmetic Cultures' invited conference speaker, University of Leeds.
2008
Theorising Practice; Practice in Theory, symposium, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Guest Speaker at ‘Skin Deeper’ public lecture in conjunction with ‘Skin Deep’ Operatic production by David Sawer & Armando Iannucci, Opera North.
2007
Beyond Prescription: Connecting Medicine, Culture & Research. Royal Holloway, University of London.
2006
‘Strangers in a Strange Land’ joint speaker with Professor Robert Whittle and artist Heather Barnett, Arts Festival.
2003
Speaker at ‘Changing Bodies, Changing Selves’ Conference, Macquarie University Sydney, Australia.
2002
Speaker at ‘Short Cuts to Beauty: in Contemporary Society’, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Three major bodies of work titled Bioglass Implants and Face Corsets, Project Facade, and Papaver Rhoeas, each funded by The Wellcome Trust, have emerged as a result of Paddy and Ian's collaborations over the past 15 years and have been exhibited at major international museums and institutions.
Project Facade, 2003–7
Project Facade, funded by a Wellcome Trust Large Arts Award, is widely considered a landmark science and art collaborative project, interpreting and combining elements of surgical, social, genealogical and military history with a contemporary art response.
Invited to Guy’s Hospital by Ian to observe facial surgeries as part of their Bioglass Implant project, Paddy became motivated to research and interpret the untold stories of the development of this unique surgery, specifically the WWI servicemen who were treated by pioneering facial surgeon Sir Harold Gillies for horrific facial injuries.
Coupled with a desire to bring greater acknowledgment and understanding of the surgery devised by Gillies and the fortitude of those undergoing radical facial reconstruction, Paddy drew inspiration from his research at the Gillies Archives and the expert knowledge of its curator, Dr Andrew Bamji, in order to interpret the lives and experiences of 10 servicemen treated by Sir Harold Gillies. Working with vintage uniforms, digital embroidery and appliqué, Paddy created unique fabric artworks illustrating the dynamic surgery the servicemen underwent, incorporating digital embroideries of research gathered from their original records and contributions of memories from the families of the men Paddy traced.
More information about the 10 servicemen and the work inspired by each of their stories can be found on Paddy's website.
The work premiered in an exhibition at the National Army Museum in London titled Faces of Battle, co-curated by Paddy, which presented the entire body of work alongside original Gillies Archives material. The exhibition told the story of the foundation of the plastic surgery unit at Sidcup by Gillies and many of the pioneering techniques and equipment devised by the team of surgeons, medics, technicians and artists based at the unit during the war years.
Regarding the project and its resulting exhibition, Paddy commented: ‘Our focus lay in curating an exhibition which depicted honestly and devoid of a sensationalist approach, the uncensored images illustrating reality of facial injury in war, and in a way in which young people could engage with challenging imagery in an educational, informative and sensitive context.’
This work has continued to be exhibited and published internationally and is in the permanent collections of a number of national museums and galleries. Researching and interpreting the stories of Gillies' WWI patients continues to be at the core of Paddy’s artistic and research practice.
Exhibitions
September 2015 - November 2015, Womens Work - Masculinity and Gender in Contemporary Fibre Art, San Diego Art Institute, CA.
January 2015, Faces of Conflict, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter.
October 2014 - January 2015, The Needle's Eye, KODE Bergen & National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway.
April 2014 - September 2014, Re:Collection, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY.
April 2013, Gone Viral, Marion Art Gallery, State University, New York, NY.
February 2013, Heads, Shoulders Genes & Toes, Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, FL.
November 2010 - March 2011, Alter Nature, Z33, CIAP & the Fashion Museum, Hasselt, Belgium.
April 2009 - August 2009, Kreig Und Medizin, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden, Germany.
November 2008 - February 2009, War + Medicine, The Wellcome Collection, London.
November 2007 - February 2008, Pricked: Extreme Embroidery, Museum of Arts & Design, New York, NY.
March 2007 - August 2007, Diagnosis Art, Museum im Kulturspeicher, Würzburg, Germany.
October 2007 - August 2008, Faces of Battle, Project Facade Exhibition, National Army Museum, London.
February 2007, Diagnosis Art, Kunst Ahlen Museum, Munster, Germany.
Permanent Collections
National Museum of Art, Oslo, Norway.
The National Army Museum, London.
The Museum of Arts & Design, New York.
The Wellcome Collection, London.
Published Work
2015
Corps Recomposés, Emmanuelle Raingeval, Aix Marseille université.
Sculptures, Etudes sur la sculpture, Emmanuelle Raingeval, PURH.
Paddy Hartley: Of Faces and Facades, edited by David Houston Jones and Marjorie Gehrhardt, Black Dog Publishing.
Figuring It Out: Disfigurement in Twentieth-& Twenty-First-Century Art & Literature, Catherine Parayre and Leslie Boldt, Arsenal Pulp Press.
Face Politics, Jenny Edkins, Routledge.
2014
Strange Materials, Storytelling Through Textiles, Leanne Praine, Arsenal Pulp Press.
2012
Textiles: The Art of Mankind, Mary Schoeser, Thames and Hudson.
Shibusa-Extracting Beauty, edited by Pip Dickens and Monty Adkins.
2010
Machine Stitch, Alice Kettle and Jane McKeating.
Art + Science Now, Steve Wilson, Thames & Hudson.
2009
Front Cover feature story, The Journal of Israeli Military Medicine.
'Mask of Agony', feature article by Editor Martin Mace, Britain at War Magazine.
'Art in Stitches', article by Frederique Joseph-Lowery in Art Press Magazine.
2008
‘Change Me’, Project Facade feature article by Paddy Hartley in History Today.
War + Medicine exhibition review by Colin Martin in the British Medical Journal.
‘A Stitch in Time' feature by Denna Jones in Embroidery Magazine on Paddy Hartley and the Project Facade.
Interview with Project Facade founder Paddy Hartley, Family History Monthly.
‘Facing the Past’, Faces of Battle exhibition feature article in Legion Magazine.
Featured artist for ‘Pricked: Extreme Embroidery’ review in Crafts Magazine.
Full-page feature, American Style Magazine.
MAD BOOK, permanent collection catalogue, Museum of Arts & Design New York.
Contemporary Textiles: The Fabric of Fine Art, edited by Nadine Monem, Blackdog Pub.
2007
Featured artist for ‘Pricked: Extreme Embroidery’ preview in Crafts Magazine.
Textile Forum Magazine feature.
Pricked: Extreme Embroidery, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Arts & Design Publishing.
Beyond Prescription: Connecting Medicine, Culture and Research, LCACE Publishing.
2006
Diagnosis Art, exhibition catalogue, Kunst Ahlen Museum Publishing.
Broadcast Coverage
BBC WWI at Home, interview by Jo Loosemore, 17 February 2014.
Featured interview for Project Facade, ‘The Deep End’, Radio National, ABC Australia, 21 April 2005.
BBC1 'Spotlight' interview by Justin Leigh, 27 February 2014.
Associated Events
2016
Keynote speaker, Junior Trainee Group, British Association of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons, Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons, Glasgow.
2015
Guest Speaker, 'A Terrible Beauty' Project Facade to Papaver Rhoeas, Norwich Museum & Art Gallery in conjunction with Norwich University.
'1914FACES2014' Conference speaker, Exeter University.
2014
Guest Speaker, 'Creative Calderdale', Elsie Whitely Innovation Centre, Halifax.
Guest Speaker, London Culture Capital Exchange at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London.
2008
International Battlefield Surgery Conference invited speaker, The Café Royal, London.
2007
Speaker at ‘Textile Identities’ Conference, Textiles Forum South West, Taunton.
Beyond Prescription: Connecting Medicine, Culture & Research, Royal Holloway, University of London.
2006
‘Strangers in a Strange Land’: Joint speaker with Professor Robert Whittle & Artist Heather Barnett, Arts Festival.
2005
Joint speaker with Dr Andrew Bamji in ‘Surgeons at War: Trafalgar to Tikrit’. The Hunterian Museum, London.
Three major bodies of work titled Bioglass Implants and Face Corsets, Project Facade, and Papaver Rhoeas, each funded by The Wellcome Trust, have emerged as a result of Paddy and Ian's collaborations over the past 15 years and have been exhibited at major international museums and institutions.
Papaver Roheas, 2014–16
Concerns pertaining to the nature of remembrance, the culture of remembrance and the current phenomena of increasing acts of public memorialisation, often politically charged, inspired the creation of Papaver Rhoeas, funded by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award. For this project, Paddy researched and explored the symbolic significance of the poppy to the WWI and the act of public remembrance. He created poppies assembled almost entirely of lamb’s heart tissue and horsehair and presented them as a pathological learning tool in specially created specimen jars. These works were created to be read in a number of ways, either as a critique of memorialisation culture, or as a memorial in and of themselves.
Paddy was inspired to create work which represented both elements of sacrifice and metaphoric passing of memory, represented in the symbolic use of lambs' heart tissue and the gradual disintegration of the work. The project posed an enormous challenge, both in terms of the technical aspect of the build and needing to prepare the tissue so that it behaves in a very specific way. Paddy and Ian worked in partnership with Mr William Edwards, Curator of the Gordon Museum of Pathology and Professor Malcolm Logan, Professor of Regenerative Biology, whose respective expertise in tissue preparation and tissue clearing techniques were a vital contribution to the making of the work.
Presenting the work as a pathological specimen in custom-made glass vessels, whose form echoed both the specimen jar and a WWI artillery shell case, added additional layers of meaning and context to the work. A pathological specimen is, by definition, a sample of human tissue, an organ, limb or other body part which is diseased or malformed and is, in many cases, used as a learning tool in diagnosis. It is, in itself, a memorial to the ailment which afflicted the host/human from which it came and in many instances, was the reason behind the death of the individual. The same could be said of the poppy and its symbolism, cemented by the use of biological tissue in its making.
More information about the project is available on Paddy's website.
Papaver Rhoeas at Museum of the Order of St John, London, 2015
Individual Papaver Rhoeas sculptures were exhibited simultaneously across 11 central London venues in November 2015 and will be exhibited as a complete group at The Lowry, Salford in 2017. A companion film illustrating the build process was also commissioned, which can be watched on Paddy's website here.
Film still from Papaver Rhoeas Biotissue Sculpture by Paddy Hartley, film direction and edit by Raquel Couceiro and Tod Ivanov
Exhibitions
November 2015
Saatchi Gallery, London, UK.
Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Richmond, London, UK.
Sir John Soane's Museum, London, UK.
Gordon Museum of Pathology, King's College London, UK.
Brunei Gallery, SOAS, London, UK.
Foundling Museum, London, UK.
Freud Museum, London, UK.
Florence Nightingale Museum, London, UK.
Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum, London, UK.
Firepower - Royal Artillery Museum, London, UK.
Museum of the Order of St John, London, UK.
Permanent Collections
The Gordon Museum of Pathology, King’s College London.
Published Work
2016
‘Front’ feature in Crafts Magazine.
Broadcast Coverage
2015
Guest Speaker at LondonLASER, University of Westminster, London, UK.