Olivia Turner is a Scottish based artist and co-founder of DOK ArtistSpace, a contemporary exhibition and studio space, in Leith, Scotland. Her multi-disciplinary practice examines the notion of space and how we experience and re-represent it. Olivia’s large paintings are densely multi-faceted representations of Brutalist buildings with composition, form and structure playing an integral part of her paintings. Developed from her photographs and drawings, the compositions are built up from multiple viewpoints. Drawings are layered onto each other using tracing paper which allows her to explore countless configurations, carefully refining these before they are developed into paintings.

Olivia uses acrylics and mediums and her paintings are free from gestural brush strokes, creating an extremely flat surface with sharp crisp lines. The palette of blue grey reflects the characteristic colours of Brutalist buildings, small elements of strong colours highlight the edges of specific forms. The composed structures float on a neutral grey background, isolated from their original environments focusing our attention on the abstract shapes presented to us. Working in series, and drawing on principals of hard edge abstraction, Olivia’s paintings demonstrate an in-depth analysis of three-dimensional form and structure and its representation into two dimensions.

William Braithwaite is a sculptor who primarily works in concrete. His modular, monolithic forms are made with visual reference to Modernist and Brutalist buildings. William pays special attention to functional elements of the building, in this current body of work there is a focus on stairwells and staircases. By embracing the materiality of concrete, William takes a much-maligned construction material and creates memorial like edifices to the Modernist and Brutalist architecture that fascinates him.

In contrast to Olivia’s technique of layering; William works with the additive nature of concrete so that his sculptures construct themselves slowly by using repetition of shape and form. William takes moulds and casts of his own sculptures, reproducing the forms to create concrete monoliths that emerge from the floor as vertical or horizontal blocks whilst others are balanced precariously on steel plinths. Within, small staircases looking like they have been carved out of the concrete, lead to nowhere, their twisting steps convey a sense of dynamism that in turn challenges the scale of the sculpture.

In their collaborative work, Olivia and William, start from a common appreciation of Brutalist forms. William’s sculptures become both subject and canvas for Olivia’s geometric paintings. A tight dialogue is created between three-dimensional and two-dimensional representation constantly switching our viewpoint and forcing us to consider commonly overlooked or maligned architectural forms.