The internationally acclaimed Jersey born artist Emily Allchurch has recently completed the installation of two major public art commissions which now form part of the new Maison Les Arches development on La Rue Le Masurier in St. Helier.
The artwork was proposed by Chris Clifford of Private & Public Gallery and commissioned by ROK Construction in partnership with Axis Mason Architects on behalf of Andium Homes in 2022 and was finally installed in the summer of 2026.
Wax and Wane was originally commissioned in 1995 by the Jersey Public Sculpture Trust and the States of Jersey Environment Department as part of the Gorselands public art trail at Les Creux Country Park in St. Brelade. As a final year student of sculpture at the Kent Institute of Art & Design at the time, this was Allchurch’s first public art commission and it remained on site for over 26 years.
The design, constructed from layers of cast concrete (pigmented in the distinctive pink of Jersey granite) echoes rhythms found in nature, such as the spiral of a shell and the waxing and waning of the moon and tides. It also responded to the many scars of human intervention in the local landscape, from Napoleonic fortifications, the old quarry and disused railway, desalination plant and concrete observation tower from the German Occupation in WWII.
Over the years, the sculpture fell into some disrepair, and in 2023 was removed and kept in storage by the States of Jersey before being made good by the artisanal stonemason Mark Guest and installed within the communal garden area of the ‘Maison des Arches’ in St Helier in 2026. The sculpture now sits close to Allchurch’s 2026 commission, ‘This Place in Time’, the two works, spanning her career, both forming part of the Percentage for Art provision for this affordable housing scheme.
This Place in Time is a digital photomontage triptych mural, printed onto waterjet-cut ceramic tiles. Commissioned by Chris Clifford of Private & Public Gallery for Andium Homes, and project-managed by Siobhann McLeod, to portray site-specific references to the geography, geology and history of the area upon which the Maison Les Arches affordable housing development is built, these three large-format colourful digital ceramic panels are intended to make a positive contribution to the visual enhancement of the site’s pedestrian route from east to south.
The imagery in these artworks traces the story of the site through time: from alluvial layers of mud, shale, diamines, shells and a buried dolmen, to medieval monks and their apple orchards, marshland with its phosphorescent gas, the C18th and C19th expansion of St. Helier, and the establishment of the nearby gas works – a well-known local landmark until it was demolished in the 1990s.
Although the artwork is mounted onto solid masonry panels set into a brickwork arcade, the tracery of the tile joints inscribed around many of the individual elements in the images, often interrupting the regular 30 x 60 cm tile grid, is intended to be reminiscent of stained glass. This additional feature was achieved by intricate waterjet cutting of individually printed ceramic tiles, painstakingly carried out by Digital Ceramics Custom Tiles of Stoke-on-Trent, pioneering for Allchurch an entirely new process for the presentation of her work in an external public art setting.
Emily Allchurch pictured behind the newly refurbished and reinstated sculpture Wax & Wane which is publicly accessible within the pedestrian route through the Maison Les Arches development
In describing the projects Emily said: “It’s been an exciting challenge to create a public artwork on such a scale and to embrace a new technique of digital printing onto cut ceramic tiles. I’m really delighted with the result and hope the piece will be enjoyed by residents and the general public, offering an insight into the rich history of the area and revealing what lies hidden beneath, such as the dolmen shown under the old gasometer, the trace of La Grande Douet stream and geological particles found on the site.
“It’s been a pleasure to work with Chris Clifford throughout the process, and I’m grateful to Jersey Archive for their assistance with my research, and Siobhann McLeod and Digital Ceramics Custom Tiles for making my designs a reality. I’m thrilled that my student sculpture ‘Wax and Wane’ has been restored thanks to Mark Guest’s expertise, and relocated here from La Corbière as part of the same Percentage for Art scheme. It has never looked better!”
Describing how the history of the area informed the commissioning brief Gallery Director Chris Clifford said: “I grew up on Tunnell Street as a child and my parents lived there for over 50 years so I have an intimate knowledge of the area, its history and the people which I thought would be a story worth retelling. It was a pleasure to work with Emily on this project as she was able to bring to life the many forgotten histories of the area. I’d also like to thank the designer Siobhann Macleod for providing such helpful oversight of the technical aspects of making and installing such a large scale and complex art installation.”
