Press Release
|The legendary Connaught Christmas Tree 2024 has been unveiled outside The Connaught, in Mayfair, and this year it has been designed by influential British artist Conrad Shawcross RA.
The legendary Connaught Christmas Tree 2024 has been unveiled outside The Connaught, and this year it has been designed by influential British artist Conrad Shawcross RA. This marks the start of the festive season on Mount Street in the heart of Mayfair.
The magnificent Nordmann Fir tree, sourced from Denmark, stands nine metres tall on Carlos Place and is bedecked with 90 eye-catching, bespoke lanterns, each one made from aluminium and hand painted with a silver coating. At the top of the tree is a bright, shining star which illuminates the streets of Mayfair, representing a symbol of hope this Christmas. Shawcross is known for incorporating mathematical ideas and geometrical patterns of interference within his designs, which are also echoed across this year’s tree design.
Commenting on his creation, Shawcross mentioned, “I first stepped inside The Connaught as a young boy in the ‘80s when my stepfather, Jonny Dewe Matthews, was an artist in residence at the hotel. He captured the busy processes of the chefs in the kitchen and portrayed this in his artwork. I still have a copper saucepan that I was given at the time, and the chef made me the best scrambled eggs. I am pleased to be re-living this happy memory and working with the hotel to create a bit of Christmas magic. I’ve been using light for over 30 years in my work so I hope my unique perspective on this medium will be a fitting and welcoming continuance of the designers who came before me.”
Commenting on The Connaught Christmas Tree 2024 General Manager Sandeep Bhalla said “We are honoured and delighted that Conrad Shawcross has agreed to add his mathematical and magical touch to our precious Connaught Christmas Tree. We hope it will be enjoyed by our guests, Mayfair neighbours and indeed all of London throughout the festive season.”
This will be the ninth year The Connaught Christmas Tree has been designed by a celebrated artist. Past tree designers include Dame Rachel Whiteread, Suzy Murphy, Damien Hirst, Sir Antony Gormley, Dame Tracey Emin DBE, Michael Craig-Martin, Sean Scully, Idris Khan and Annie Morris. The Connaught has long established itself as playing a significant role in the art world, amassing a considerable art collection over its 170-year history.
The Connaught Christmas Tree 2024 by Conrad Shawcross RA will shine bright and illuminate Carlos Place until the first week of January 2025.
ABOUT THE CONNAUGHT
At the centre of London’s Mayfair, The Connaught, operated by Maybourne, redefines the British luxury experience. An expertly judged blend of tradition with the utmost modernity, it is the insider’s choice of connoisseurs in the art of living well. The Connaught includes a magnificent selection of traditional and contemporary guest rooms, suites and interiors, as well as the United Kingdom’s first ever Aman Spa, and a David Collins Studio designed penthouse. Michelin chef restaurants by Hélène Darroze, Jean Georges and the multi award winning Connaught Bar and Coburg bar along with the Red Room create a destination for dining and drinking in London. A delightful Japanese influenced garden by renowned landscape artist Tom Stuart-Smith, and a Ballroom for international and local Mayfair events makes The Connaught Hotel a true London landmark.
www.the-connaught.co.uk
ABOUT CONRAD SHAWCROSS RA
Imbued with an appearance of scientific rationality, Conrad Shawcross’ RA (b. 1977) monumental sculptures often explore subjects that lie on the borders of geometry and philosophy, physics and metaphysics.
Inspired by different technologies, the artist's structures may retain in appearance the authority of machines – yet their raison d’être remains elusive, filled with paradox and wonder. Some have a melancholy feel, while others tend to the sublime, substituting the purely functional for phenomenological experience. Over almost three decades, Shawcross has paid tribute to some of the great pioneers and analysts, and considered specific moments or figures from the past. Shawcross’ art dons a cloak of rationality in order to conceal its more poetic heart. Interrogating what we take for granted and encouraging us to see beyond the physical and remember how limited our perception envelope really is.
Shawcross has completed numerous monumental public commissions across the world, including Paradigm (2016) outside the Francis Crick Institute in London, the 50 metre tall The Optic Cloak (2016) in Greenwich, the 18-metre tall Exploded Paradigm (2018) inside the atrium of the Comcast Technology Centre in Philadelphia, Schism (2020) at Château La Coste in Provence, France, the 4.5-metre tall Enwrought Light Fracture in honour of the poet W.B. Yeats in Chiswick (2022), and Manifold 5:4 (2023) at the Liverpool Street Entrance to the Elizabeth Line. He has exhibited at institutions across the world, including Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, the Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania, Wadsworth Atheneum in Connecticut, USA, the National Gallery in London, ARTMIA in Beijing, Château La Coste in France, the Mathematical Institute in Oxford, and MICAS in Malta.
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