Meggie Settle
 

I started my design process by reading through the libretto, listening through the songs. I then started to use Pinterest to create some semblance of the atmosphere I wanted to create. Act 1 having two major settings, the island of La Grande Jatte and George's studio. Act 2, having the park scene to open, then the Chromolume display and the gallery space, and finally the modern La Grande Jatte. Having understood the spaces, I started to come up with initial ideas with how I could combine the interior spaces with the park setting. I decided to research the architecture seen in French buildings and also George Seurat's studio spaces he used. I realised I could create a broken walled studio space made up of angled flats, I designed these flats to feel ephemeral by creating them to look like stud walls, with painted hessian. The hessian created beautiful texture, helping us to reflect the pointillism of George Seurat work.  The flooring would obviously have to stay the same throughout, I knew I wanted to create a multi layered paint effect on the floor, using splatters to recreate the grass scene in the original painting. That was the park flooring complete, but how to create the interiors? From my research I came across how parquet floors became popular in France during the 19th century, first in grand buildings such as Versailles and then eventually in public spaces such as galleries and even schools. I created a design onto 8x4 boards, which could be cutting using the CNC machine, and chose how deep the routed lines would be from samples created by the carpentry department. One of the things I loved most about the park design process, was creating the tree canopy, although I knew I would be taking up another fly bar, I felt it was important to create a softness to the park scenes, with the legs and backdrops being so flat, I felt the scene lacked the fresh softness of a park. I loved the way they hung in the space. 

The central flat could then be used in Act two to the create the gallery wall in which the painting sits in. I designed this central flat so that pin hinges could be used at the back allowing us to transition the studio into the gallery and replace the half finished painting to the finished piece. For the gallery scenes the tree canopy was removed, helping to elongate the space and helping to transition the legs into the display banners for the gallery seen in galleries, which we did by using projection. We used projection again for the modern day park, taking a sketch created by George Seurat to create the impression that there were buildings now across on the seine on stage right.