EVENT / Arup x Frank Water x Aster Muro: Bristol's Green Future
On Thursday 19th September, Arup is holding a ‘Bristol’s green future: creating a resilient, sustainable, and connected city’ event, at their new Bristol office in the EQ building on Victoria Street.
The event celebrates Arup’s 50 years in Bristol, their partnership with Bristol-based charity, Frank Water, and the installation of Aster Muro’s new frescoes in their office space.
As part of this event, in collaboration with Arup and Frank Water, Aster Muro is making available the limited collection of 6 maquettes which were created as part of the development of the final frescoes.
Each special, original piece is available to buy - as a charity donation - to raise funds for Frank Water towards their work providing vulnerable people with safe, clean water. Each painting measures 60 x 40cm.
To Buy a Limited Collection Fresco Maquette/ Make a Donation
For each fresco, please make a donation of £2,000 (directly to Frank Water here). Add a note in the message box indicating which fresco you are purchasing, and they will let the studio know.
Shipping needs to be arranged for a separate amount directly with Aster Muro here.
You can view the frescoes below, and read more about the project, creative process, and installation.
If you have any questions, or would like to see detail photographs of a piece, please contact the Aster Muro studio.
PRESS RELEASE: Aster Muro Frescoes for Arup’s New Bristol Offices
by Emily Hedges
18/08/2024
Charles Snell of Aster Muro is an abstract fresco painter and has recently completed a project for Arup’s new offices near Bristol docks. Inspired by the Impressionists and the way that Turner captures the fleeting quality of light in his watercolours, Charles brings luminescence to his interior fresco commissions in restaurants, public spaces, and private homes across Europe. He has done the same for Arup.
Charles was introduced to Arup by Frank Water, a Bristol based charity that Arup supports. Frank Waters’ aims are to communicate the fragility of water supply in Climate Change and run projects that deliver clean drinking water to people around the world. Both organisations were involved in the development of the project that Arup commissioned Aster Muro to undertake.
At Aster Muro, Charles works closely with his wife and partner Lianne in developing ideas. Lianne read English at Oxford so there’s often a literary flavour to their concepts. Initial discussions for Arup and Frank Water led to the idea of confetti as a theme - to embody their shared aspirations: unity, flow and cycle - and joy. Confetti representing a sense of many people joining and working together, drifts of water droplets as well as a celebration of Arup’s new workspace.
Aster Muro’s frescoes were commissioned for two curved walls in a break-out area, one concave, the other convex. The frescoes were designed as a pair, to emanate a sense of warmth with areas of pink and yellow, contrasting with cooler, mistier sections in cream and blue, designed to convey the idea of water.
The Artist at Work
When he’s creating the frescoes, Charles works quickly and with great concentration. The work needs to be completed within a few hours before the marble and lime plaster base-layer dries. It’s exciting to watch him as he swoops and draws the colours over the wet plaster. It’s surprisingly physical work. Charles pulls the colour across the length of the wall using a range of plasterer’s trowels, some longer than his arm. Colours from a pre-determined palette are added layer on layer and a scintillating surface is created that has great depth and interest.
There’s a constant back and forth, with Charles regularly standing back to check the balance and composition of his work. When he feels it’s almost there, the pace slows right down and with smaller tools, he makes smaller marks until finally, the droplets of water or confetti, are added deftly with a plasterer’s knife laden with colour, quickly, lightly over the surface.
Charles reflects on the project:
“Collaborating with Arup and Frank Water on this project has been brilliant. It’s been a layered and rich process, absorbing the various elements that needed to be expressed for everyone, and then distilling and expanding them into the Confetti concept. We’ve loved presenting to the Arup team at the different stages, and the frescoes that are now installed in their new office have a really powerful and dynamic presence that will hopefully energise and inspire everyone who works there.”
For more information about the project and the work of Aster Muro, please contact: studio@astermuro.co.uk or visit astermuro.co.uk.
Detail from Confetti 3.