Sheesh Restaurant Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Chigwell
ArtworkIn collaboration with Kensington Artists
Sheesh Restaurant in Chigwell, Essex, wanted to bring one of the most celebrated ceilings in the world into its dining room: a hand-painted recreation of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. The work was carried out in collaboration with Kensington Artists, the specialist mural and fine art studio.
The ceiling is divided into a series of large painted panels set within a framework of ribs and arches, echoing the painted architecture Michelangelo used to order his own scheme. Among them are the prophets Joel, Isaiah and Jonah, the Delphic Sibyl, the Temptation and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and the Creation of the Sun, Moon and Plants, with the prophets and sibyls named on painted cartouches as in the original.
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Every panel was painted by hand, working overhead from scaffold platforms inside the restaurant. Ceiling painting makes its own demands: the artist works with the arm raised for hours at a time, and each figure has to be judged for how it will read from the tables below rather than from a few feet away. The sweeping drapery, the modelling of the figures and the strong colours of the frescoes were built up in layers until every panel sat together as a single scheme.
Beneath the crystal chandeliers, the finished ceiling gives the dining room a sense of theatre and grandeur rarely found in a restaurant, and complements the hand-painted glass portraits we created for Sheesh.
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