In 2010, the Ruhr Valley was named the European Capital of Culture, hence the region put on an in-depth series of public programming in all fields of the arts. One of these was Hochhaus Hansa, a former coal refinery turned Museum. With the support of ArtLab21, I presented a body of large works dwarfed amongst the massive machinery.
It was an amazing experience, the space itself had not been touched since the refinery closed over 35 years ago. Newspapers from the final days could be found still laying on the floor. It smelled of mildew and eery history. And, the scale was overwhelming. The majority paintings below are six-eight feet wide, so that give an idea as to how large these steel beasts and rooms were.
My work was also shown (and published in an exhibition catalogue) with a fantastic group of international artists, most of whom I had the privilege of spending time with and learning from. These artists included Michael Sistig, Robert Seidel, So-Young Park, Amely Spoetzl, Rebecca Lowry, Taka Kagitomi, Satoshi Kojima, Matthias Galvez and Natasha Schmitten. Below are images of the installation of some of my works (and me standing in the basement, which was certainly haunted).
