Radian | An Art Program Rooted in Place

August 8, 2024 Guest User

At art_works, creating art programs for our Corporate Partners is a gesture that involves much more than simply putting art on the wall.

Visual impact is essential, but artwork can also speak to people, places, and values in varying degrees. In a recent project for Radian Boston, as part of a larger design refresh vision led by RODE Architects, we were tasked with collaborating on an art program that spans the building’s lobby and resident amenity spaces. The story of the building and the site upon which it sits was a primary source of inspiration.

Located in an area initially functioning as Boston’s former shoreline, the area came to host the city’s burgeoning textile industry, which peaked in the nineteenth century. Eventually, the site, now hosting Radian, became home to Dainty Dot Hosiery and other textile-related companies.

Given the neighborhood’s dual maritime and textile histories, the art program’s goal was to intentionally integrate art into the building’s design and find ways to connect to the area’s unique geological and economic pasts. The artist projects we pursued offered different paths toward this conceptual mandate.

Michael Zachary, for example, rendered a portrait of Boston’s original shoreline in a tondo painting, while Stephen Proski’s 60-foot ceramic installation unfurls across a curved wall to mimic the shape of a wave. Steven J. Cabral’s paintings collage fabric into abstract compositions while Adrienne Shishko used found textiles in a woven painting, both artists showing how reclaimed textiles, like buildings, carry unique markers that can be updated and repurposed.

By creating opportunities for artists to expand their practices in bold new ways, we engineered an art program that embeds within a place’s broader visual, conceptual, and material conversations.

Artwork Crediting (all photography by Flaunt Boston):

Images 2-4: Adrienne Shishko, Revisiting the Past, 2024. Paint, canvas, fabric, thread, deer fencing, zip ties. 72” x 48”. © Adrienne Shishko.

Images 7-8: Steven J. Cabral, left: Finding Space #5, 2023. Acrylic, crayons, flashe, and paper on canvas, 40” x 40”; right: Finding Space #6, 2023. Acrylic, markers, crayons, flashe, paper, and fabric on canvas, 40” x 42”. © Steven J. Cabral.