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Installation: Illuminated Carpet Artist: Julie Westerman

Trail map location

Prebends Bridge

Illuminated Carpet will be moored in the river just downstream from the Prebends Bridge, above the wear. The ‘raft structure’ allows the sculpture to float on the surface of the river, responding to the rippling current.

The design has focused on the rose motif, a flower highly favoured by carpet makers from both the East and West. It merges styles and patterns from the Indian carpets of the Moghal Dynasty and designs found in the pattern books of the Barnard Castle carpet industry together with the memory of the rose gardens once common along the banks of the River Wear.

Julie Westerman has a long history of successful public art projects. Fundamental to these is the notion of creating site-specific works that reflect and engage the audience and enhance their experience of the place. Her work ranges in scale from intimate interventions to monumental forms using a variety of materials from bronze and copper to steel, acrylic, light and steam.

Although I have worked with a variety of materials and approaches, my recent work utilizes CAD and animation packages, using the change in scale and media to bring together the implausible, the intangible, the transitory or the ephemeral, with the monumental and the sculptural.
Julie Westerman