‘Plate painting’ makes debut at High

Artist Molly Hatch spent Monday and Tuesday, with much help, at the High Museum of Art installing "Physic Garden," a two-story-tall, hand-painted "plate painting," which reinterprets 1755 Chelsea Factory plates from the museum's decorative arts and design collection.

Hatch’s two-story “plate painting,” made up of 456 hand-painted pieces, was installed in the High’s Margaretta Taylor Lobby and will be open to the public March 12. It is expected to be up for several months.

The historic source plates depict realistic plants and animals in the Chelsea “Hans Sloane” style of the early 1750s. The influential Chelsea Physic Garden, a botanical garden founded by the Society of Apothecaries in London in 1673, was leased by collector Hans Sloane and likely inspired neighboring factory porcelain decorators.

The High’s installation is the largest Hatch has ever made.

“I am thrilled to work with such a talented contemporary artist as Molly and to have the outcome be such a dynamic and monumental acquisition for the High,” said Sarah Schleuning, curator of decorative arts and design at the High.

To create the “plate painting,” Hatch digitally altered high-resolution images of the surface decoration of the High’s plates to draft a new composition. She projected her ideas from the Chelsea designs onto 456 dinner plates and hand-painted each plate.

“I encourage the viewer to see ceramics as a part of the fine art continuum — viewing plates as one would view a painting,” Hatch said.

“The artwork becomes an exploration of the relationship between the historic and the contemporary — crossing over categories of decorative art, design and fine art,” she said.

The High is acquiring the piece, which can reinstalled at future dates in smaller incarnations or in other locations.