Art In The Workplace

Core values of Byard Art

Our Gallery and Collection

Immerse yourself in the world of contemporary art with Byard Art, an independent gallery nestled in Cambridge’s historic heart. For 25 years, we’ve enriched spaces with art, transforming homes and workplaces alike. Benefit from our comprehensive corporate services tailored to businesses in both private and public sectors. We work hand-in-hand with our clients, ensuring the chosen artworks seamlessly blend with your building’s design, company ethos, and the people within.

Explore the diverse styles, subjects, and mediums of over 100 respected and upcoming artists from the UK and Europe. Our collection boasts painters, printmakers, sculptors, photographers, and artisans in glass, textiles, and ceramics. Need something unique? We utilise our robust connections with artists to create bespoke art pieces, tailored exclusively for your business. Dive into the transformative power of art with Byard Art.

Make it memorable

Make it unique

Make it yours

What we offer

At our gallery, you’ll find an expert team ready to guide you through our vast collection to pinpoint the perfect artwork that will enhance your workspace. We don’t just stop at advice; we also offer support with acquiring information about the artist, purchasing the artwork, shipping, and ultimately assisting you in placing the chosen piece in the most suitable spot within your premises.

Our unique strength lies in our ability to identify and collaborate with artists to curate artwork that is tailored specifically to your workspace. We take a meticulous approach, considering a range of factors, including your company’s values, your clientele, your staff, the architecture of your building, and practical and budgetary considerations to find the perfect piece. Our service may include sourcing a grand centerpiece for your building’s entrance or individual pieces to breathe new life into your office setting. Our assistance doesn’t end with just selection; we’re with you every step of the way, from site visits, presenting potential artists and ideas, coordinating with artists, and offering support and advise for hanging the piece.

Artwork can drastically transform your employees’ workspace. We believe in employee involvement and offer strategies like voting on selected pieces, hosting a viewing event, or gathering feedback to encourage their participation. Buying new art is an exceptional experience, and the chosen artwork, which will be placed in a space where you and your staff spend a significant amount of time, should truly mirror the identity of your company.

Questions to Consider

What is the purpose of the artwork?

This could be to add personality to a space, be inspirational to our workforce, reinforce your brand, or add a sense of grandeur to an entrance.

Who will see the piece?

Will this be a first impression for important guests? Or a piece to become part of your employee’s second home?

Are there special requirements in the building?

You may have an unusual space, rental restrictions, large windows, or spaces that require extra lighting.

What do we want the piece to say about our company?

Incorporating your brand identity, such as colour or a design detail from your company’s logo can be a great way to personalise a piece. This could also be a statement about the founders of the company, or a positive piece to create joy in an otherwise work-related space.

What’s Next? The Process

To begin, we conduct a site visit to get to know you and your business and talk through the potential spaces to which you would like to add artwork. Sometimes we can envisage quite surprising solutions to add personality to a space, including suspending artworks or works to be placed outside.

If you’re looking for a bespoke piece, we may ask to take away items that represent your brand identity before delivering a proposal of artists. Once you’ve decided on an artist to continue with, we work closely with both you and the artist to progress the commission, ensuring timely updates are communicated along the way until the project is complete. After completion, we can advise and help to orchestrate shipping and installation.

Contact Us;

Call 01223 464646 and ask to speak with Hannah or Jessie

Email info@byardart.co.uk

We look forward to starting your artwork journey

Chris Wood

For Chris Wood, her canvas is glass and her medium is light. She uses one to manipulate the other, with subtle interventions carefully placed in the optical plane. She harnesses patterns of light, which recall ephemeral glimpsed moments in the natural world. As glass is used more and more predominately as a sheeted shield, it is perceived as a material that excludes the majority of people from huge corporate buildings. Alternatively, it is a functional piece of tableware that we unthinkingly use everyday.

Dichroic - from the Greek dikhroos, meaning two coloured.

Chris Wood artworks feature a material called dichroic which was originally developed by NASA in the 1960’s.

Dichroic is a colourless optical coating that selectively reflects certain wavelengths of light. This allows the remaining wavelengths to transmit through, producing a variety of rainbow coloured shadows and projections. The material itself shifts from being reflective like a golden mirror to vibrantly coloured or almost transparent depending upon the viewpoint and angle of light.

Swirl

Dichroic Glass, Aluminium, Light 80 x 80cm £4,800

Apogee Dichroic Glass, Aluminium, Light 150 x 150cm £18,000

“I discovered Dichroic glass when I was at the Royal College of Art and I was absolutely fascinated by it, however, every time I tried to use it - it just looked too busy! I played with it for over 10 years before I worked out how to use it successfully. I’d moved to the fens in East Anglia and was working with reflective materials against the strong lines of the fenland landscape – it was this that inspired the mathematically engineered approach I use to contain the dichroic effects. If you’re interested in light, glass is the material you naturally gravitate towards, and dichroic is the most eloquent description of the magic of light.”

Artist Chris Wood

Apogee Detail

Loss Dichroic Glass, Aluminium, Light 150 x 150cm

£18,000

Interference

Dichroic Glass, Aluminium, Light

Individual Panels 40 x 40cm £2,0000 per panel

Recent Project

In the summer of 2022, we initiated a collaboration with a science-oriented firm based in Cambridgeshire, boasting significant office and laboratory facilities. This company, having recently relocated and invested an active role in the building’s design, sought to enrich their expansive entrance with artistic elements aligned to their brand identity.

We commenced by conducting a site visit to evaluate potential spaces and subsequently developed a curated portfolio of potential artist profiles and options. This portfolio was disseminated amongst interested employees, resulting in the selection of artist Chris Wood.

A follow-up site visit with the artist facilitated the creation of three unique design proposals, each accompanied by budgetary considerations. Following a comprehensive consultation, one design was chosen for implementation. Observing the agreed timeline, the artist commenced work on the chosen piece.

Upon completion, the firm’s in-house team took responsibility for its installation, although we provided alternative solutions for this process. The result was a highly satisfied client with a striking new feature enhancing an architecturally impressive space.

Sally Burch

At the start of Sally Burch’s life as a painter she fought against her graphic roots, but now fully embraces those skills and influences to stir the “paint pot” with ever evolving ideas from her fine art education. Her art practice is influenced by natural landscapes and phenomena that she personally experiences via both physical and virtual media. Working with sketches and digital media, she builds up a catalogue of simplified references, motifs and colours that she converts into her own pictorial language of pattern, form and pigment.

Blue Moon Ink, Dry Pigment & Polymers on Panel 82 x 63cm £1,400

Spring is in the Air Ink, Dry Pigment & Polymers on Panel 102 x 102cm £2,500

Martha Winter

Martha’s artistic practice has been profoundly influenced by exposure to two vastly different environments. A youth spent in London, surrounded by minimal art and modern architecture gave her the visual language of reduced and economical form, and a fascination with systems, repetition and order. This was coupled with the regular witnessing of the raw power of the East Anglian coastline. In this, Martha became aware of natural laws and gained an interest in the organised chaos of physical matter.

Living near Cambridge, a city at the epicentre of scientific research, Martha became aware how scientific research influences our understanding of the natural world. Through observing nature and biomimicry, she has developed a process that allows her to draw with a sand solution. This painstaking method enables the creation of form through line and texture around which other materials and pigments are then accumulated over time.

Breaking Circle i

Sand and Pigment

50 x 50cm

£775

Breaking Circle ii

Sand and Pigment

50 x 50cm

£775

Finding Rhythm (Triptych)

Sand and Pigment 80 x 120cm

£3,100

Sarah Emily Porter

Sarah Emily Porter is a visual artist who explores colour and the historical context of painting. By gaining an in-depth understanding of the chemical properties of paint, she has been able to challenge the rules of painting to create work that is a collaboration between her own desires and the unpredictable tendencies of her materials. With modernist ideas at the forefront of her work, she has created her own innovative painting tools which pour and manipulate paint on tilting wooden structures.

Killer Sudoku No. 3

Acrylic on Canvas 57 x 57cm

£880

Mini Sudoku No. 3

Acrylic on Canvas 30 x 30cm

£350

Emily Jones

Emily V Jones’s vivid artworks explore geometry and colour, manipulating the viewers interpretation of shape with her unique folding technique, deployed across a range of mediums to create one off, 3D contemporary. Jones demonstrated her creative flair from an early age - initially studying art and photography at school where she found herself continually drawn to paper as a medium, captivated by the versatility it offered to sculptural structures.

Bespoke Framing Service

Our custom framing service caters to everything from valuable documents, awards, to vibrant pieces of art, ensuring they are framed with the highest quality for an eye-catching display. We provide a personalised service, which permits you to browse through a wide variety of samples from our collection. This collection comprises of all sorts of frames, from modern and chic designs to vintage gilded styles. Our team is committed to assisting you in selecting the best frame that suits your specific artwork and aligns with your business aesthetic.

Located in Chesterton Mill, Byard Art’s Master Framer brings more than 25 years of experience to the table and follows guild and conservation standards. His vast professional experience has furnished him with the skills to manage a variety of items. Even if you possess an odd item or a set of memorabilia that you think can’t be framed, we are here to take on the challenge. If you’re planning to place a large order, we’re prepared to offer a discretionary discount.

Selection of frames and quotation can be completed at two locations. You can also book an appoinment via phone or email.

Opening Times:

Byard Art Gallery Framing : Monday – Saturday 10 – 5pm

14 Kings Parade, Cambridge, CB1 2SJ

Chesterton Mill Workshop : Tuesday – Friday 9am – 4pm Saturday 9am – 12pm

Unit 14, Chesterton Mill, Frenches Road, CB4 3NP