Mythical Land:
The Folk Tales Collection
Date
2018
Andrew Martin in collaboration with Kit Kemp (Firmdale Hotels)
Client
Hand-painted fresco secco at Melissa White Studio, Hastings
Provenance
My first Firmdale Hotels experience was at an award ceremony at Ham Yard in Soho. I was instantly bowled over by the joyful and uncompromising interior design. So I was thrilled when Kit Kemp approached me soon afterwards to collaborate on a new project.
Having used some of my wallpapers for Zoffany and Lewis & Wood in several of her hotels, she already knew my work and could see the potential of a collaboration fusing her vision for the Whitby and my painterly style. The starting point was Mythical Creatures, a collection of whimsical animals Kit had designed for both Chelsea Textiles and then Wedgwood. Drawing inspiration from American folk art, my brief was to build a fantastical land for them to roam.
The Design
I played with scale and surface pattern to create a horizontal repeat, about three metres tall, that would run continuously around the walls from dado level to ceiling. The landscape is pastoral and fantastical in equal measure: a lively river runs through the scene, its banks bordered with wildflowers, trees grow giant pears, and rolling hills carry the eye through a country that feels ancient and joyful at the same time. The creatures move through it with the ease of inhabitants, not additions: a giant snail making its way up a tree trunk, a spotted beast leaping in celebration, animals that seem to have their own destinations and their own histories.
At this scale the design does not decorate the walls. It becomes them.
The Process
At my studio I painted the composition as a fresco secco, to give it a worn parchment effect. Then I had it scanned so I could complete the repeat in CAD before zapping it to my printers, who digitally printed enough rolls to cover the walls of two meeting rooms at the newly built Whitby.
The next time I saw my design it was part of Kit's two spectacular room schemes: the Anrep Room and the Araminta Room.
This is the core of the paint to pixel to print process. The fresco secco original exists as a physical artefact. The digitised version carries every brushstroke, every layer of texture, every trace of the hand into the final installation.
From Whitby to the World
In 2018, Mythical Land was chosen as the centrepiece of the Folk Tales Collection, the wallpaper and fabric range Kit and I developed together for Andrew Martin. It has been in production ever since. That longevity tells me what I have always believed: a hand-painted original, made seriously, outlasts the season it launches in. Mythical Land is one of Andrew Martin's most enduring designs.
The design is available in several colourways, including Daybreak (the original), Setting Plaster, Vellum, and Clay. Each panel covers up to 2.8 metres wide by 3.5 metres high, supplied as a single roll containing Panel A and Panel B.
Mythical Land began as a conversation about a world worth building. That is still the kind of brief I find most interesting: not a specification, but a vision, where the research and the painting are part of arriving at something neither side could have anticipated alone. If you are a brand with that kind of ambition for a collaboration, I would welcome hearing from you.
Mythical Land is available globally via Andrew Martin and Kit Kemp Design.
“Drawing from American folk art, I built a fantastical land for Kit Kemp’s whimsical creatures to roam. The design doesn’t just decorate the walls; it becomes them, offering a pastoral country that feels ancient and joyful at the same time.”