James Makin Gallery is designed as a contemporary gallery space, but with the addition of small but impactful ancillary spaces. It seeks to deformalize the often ‘institutional’ gallery space typified by white only, square-set walls and in Makin’s words “reframe the viewing of art”. At the heart of this design counterpoint is a series of blackened, and curving, timber objects, walls and cutaways.
Visitors are drawn in and through a belly-like space: dramatic, textural and tactile. Only glimpses of the art beyond are given as one journeys through the social spaces of reception, bar, viewing room and library.
