The Treatment Rooms

The ‘Treatment Rooms’ is a privately owned house in west London currently having its exterior walls transformed by a collective of artists.

The aim is to cover the entire outside walls of the three-storey house in mosaic art, which is planned as a self-contained conceptual piece. The artists have just completed work on the front wall, from east to west, in and around the porch, effectively completing half of the planned three tiers.

The subject matter of the different sections draws on a huge range of cultural references and associations, and is evolving as the work progresses.

One of the main motivating forces for doing this work is the desire to produce Public Art that is uncensored and unusual. The artists want to include powerful political references, to put their work in a social context, to make it an expression of the reality of life today. Also they want to include historical references to the art and culture of the past, both to show the immense variety of different visual traditions, and to highlight the differences, and the correspondences, with our present situation.

Nothing used in the design is a direct copy of earlier styles; rather the mosaicists have used different styles as an inspiration. Many people have collaborated on the ideas and the working out of the finished designs. Recycled and donated tiles are used. There are some found objects and other materials too. 

The mosaics are very incongruous both in relation to their setting in Chiswick, and to the architecture of the house itself. The section around the front door, with its alchemical symbols of the four elements in Latin, its all-seeing one-eyed Mickey Mouse, its Tree of Life symbol, its Mayan Gods supporting the porch and ornate Indian decoration, transform the entrance - and just who is that peeking out from under the door?

The walls around the windows to the left of the porch are decorated with Eastern-inspired frames and are inlaid with ceramic discs associated with symbols used in alchemy and Pagan ritual. Running the length and height is what can best be described as a Surrealist tableau, featuring fly agarics, flying eyeballs, a mischievous marriage of Mandrakes and a querulous caterpillar who bids the viewer answer his simple question.

To the right of the porch is a Tiki-inspired island landscape that’s either paradise or hell, depending how you look at it (palm trees, a giant orange totem pole, battleships, a pair of lovers and some UFOs). Above this scene explodes an illuminated eye. It was nice of English Heritage to award us a blue plaque for our efforts, wasn’t it?

As well as being a work of visual beauty, the house will be a vision of world cultures, allowing interpretations and possibilities for appreciation on many different levels, with a wealth of references and points of interest.

The Treatment Rooms house is a political statement in itself, and a reaction against the commodification of Art that is so prevalent today.

The Treatment Rooms
4 Fairlawn Grove
Chiswick
W4 5EH
London

www.livingspacearts.com
treatmentrooms@btinternet.com

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