‘Concrete can have a bad reputation, and it is often perceived as uniform, ugly and alienating. The cool grey board-marked concrete of Southbank Centre’s 1960s buildings belies these perceptions – hand-made, sumptuous and haptic. The concrete was poured into moulds of Baltic pine, reproducing the rough grain of the wood, a technically demanding process: the building has been described as a wooden building, but cast in concrete’.

(Excerpt from, ‘Concrete Dreams: Celebrating the Southbank Centre’s Brutalist buildings’. Dr. Otto Saumarez Smith, 2018). 

Referencing the construction methods used, my series of ‘Brutal Blocks’ are made using laser cut baltic ply and are designed to be arranged in a variety of stacked or standing combinations.

Using my photographs of the South Bank Centre's exterior walls, I developed textured surfaces for screen printing on my 'blocks.' The textures are derived from the shuttered concrete of the National Theatre. The small coloured Perspex pieces reflect colours I observed while navigating the space, sourced from painted walls, posters, signs, or fleeting details from passersby.