SPOTLIGHT ARTIST: NATALIE PERCY

In the week following Imbue, the Bib&Sola pop-up boutique in Mayfair, our Spotlight Artist is Natalie Percy, who featured in the boutique.

Since childhood, Natalie Percy has loved taking clocks apart to find out how they work. She has long been fascinated by the idea that “time” is actually a collection of tiny metal parts that interact precisely to tell us when our day begins and ends. The intricate internal workings are always concealed, and Natalie wanted to create a piece of artistic work that makes their hidden beauty visible, using light within the structure to enhance the outlines.

Natalie Percy trained at Hastings College of Art and Design, specialising in sculpture and illustration. Throughout this time, she has continued to produce her own artwork, obsessively drawing and cutting complex designs out of paper and card. When she discovered that she could use metal in the same manner, she was inspired to create this portfolio of work to exhibit at gallery standard.

The Angel In The Attic I pieces, exhibited at Debut Contemporary, turn out to be a great success, receiving lots of positive responses. As most of you may already know, these pieces got recently picked up by ethical design entrepreneur Kira Heuer (Bib&Sola) to feature in pop-up boutique Imbue.

Angel In The Attic 1

“I’m of course extremely happy to have been asked to be a part of Imbue. Having seen the beautiful ’Martha Collection’ of hand-blown glasses  and carafes, created by Kira Heuer (Bib&Sola) and her reasoning behind their creation, her dedication to helping others gain access to something as  simple as clean water delights me.”

At Imbue, 5% of the profit was donated to The One Foundation’s water aid programme in Malawi. Something that is important to Natalie as well, and where she feels personally connected to: “Very much like Kira I grew up with a sea on my doorstep and didn’t even realise how lucky I was. Seeing children in developing countries playing in dirty contaminated water fills me with sadness. Knowing that part of the proceeds from Imbue goes to such an important foundation gives me the opportunity to be a part of something I truly believe in. It also strikes particular chord with me, since, as a child I contracted meningitis, apparently as a result of contaminated water.”

Natalie is not your everyday art school graduate. She began her working life as standby props person at BBC television centre, progressing to become standby art director on a range of productions before making the move to feature films. Alongside her television and film career, Natalie works as PA to actress and writer Maureen Lipman, and in her limited spare time she dedicates herself to being the lead singer in her band: the 236! We say: check them out!

To learn a bit more about Imbue, Natalie and her interests, we asked her some quick questions:

So tell us about Imbue, How did it go?

The evening of the launch of Imbue was incredibly brilliant, the moment I walked into the beautiful  white high celling room with the sun shining through the enormous windows I was happy.  The setting was stunning, as were the works of other designers and artists. I felt extremely happy to see my work ‘Angel In The Attic 1’, the three different colours of my work complimented aspects of décor in the room. Kira Heuer’s (Bib&Sola) attention to detail and the pieces she chose to curate, all seemed very comfortable together even though many of the pieces were very different.

The evening was buzzing with an artistic atmosphere, I personally found myself having to push myself to talk about my work to people which is a great step forward for me. It’s also very helpful to know that with hard work and determination it is possible to set out to achieve what’s in your heart like Kira for the One Foundation. I’m really hoping that we raised a good amount of money for this and of course I hoped to of sold some work to be in a position to fund my next project. It was a delight to be a part of and I look forward to working with Bib& Sola in the future.

Where does the name Angel in the attic 1 come from?

The name stems from my move to London eight years ago, a space high up and away from the constant distractions of the modern world. Although small, this was my space, a peaceful place where I could live, create and eat ice cream. I frequently helped the lady who owned the house as her husband had then just passed away. She often referred to me as her ‘Angel in the attic’ this seemed the perfect name that describes both myself and my work.

Who would you like to have over for dinner at your house?

Well this is an easy question for me. Firstly that would be Tim Burton because as far as being a unique and incredibly creative person, he’s the only person I’ve really wanted to say ‘I think your work is brilliant’ and ‘could I have a job on set’ to. Having worked with well-known people my whole life, you get so used to it. You’re not at all bothered who they are because you know they are just like you.  But I once was running for the parking meter in Hampstead  and I ran round a blind corner and bumped literally  into  him all I said was ‘oh really sorry’,  can you believe that after all these years!

I would also like Lady Gaga over for dinner, I think her and Tim would get along just fine. I became really interested in her when I heard her sing ‘Orange Coloured Sky’, it’s just beautiful. I’ve recently asked my band to cover one of her songs and they gave me a little grief, but whilst learning it they were saying ‘not one chord is the same she is a musical genius’. My band are all musically trained, so would they have known that about her if we hadn’t of covered a song? Her talent, her determination to tell young people of today to just be who you are and her apparent cooking skills is why she should come for dinner…

Es Devlin would be next on my list just because I’d just like to talk to her she is a brilliant stage designer I think  my work would fit right on some of her stage sets and so maybe we good do a collaboration of some kind, we could talk about that over dinner…

And finally I would invite Guy Laliberte because he himself used to be a street performer, and then created this unbelievable show .The artistic technical information that this man has to create such complex breath-taking shows of Cirque du Soleil… he  needs to tell all of us at the table how this is done. I love that the name means circus of the sun and the sun stands for energy and youth which is completely what the shows are about.  I think if all of these people came for dinner I’d be a very happy woman.

Best youtube link is…….

Goldfish Salvation by Riusuke Fakahori 

When in west London/ Notting hill you definitely should visit ….

If you want a restaurant that is very unique pop into Beach blanket Babylon..  If you like clothes that are designed with attention to detail and have a story to tell, go visit my friend Daryll the creator of Robot Bunny in Whitley’s shopping centre. And lastly if you’re in need of a cake and cup of tea pop into the Humming bird Bakery another friend Tarek Malouf created this lovely place!

Natalie plans to design much larger sculptures and expand her use of diverse metals to create exciting artwork for domestic settings, restaurants and bars.

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