• Sleepless night in the valley

    Light and drawing installation at «Hotel Arthur»

    The association Kunsthalle[n] Toggenburg has set its sight on realising a big art exhibition at different, unusual places in the region every year. Thus, new art galleries emerge and disappear every year in the Toggenburg region. Art «nomadizes».

    Hotel prior to demolition

    In this project, Kunst­verein Toggenburg dealt with tourism – visionary, nostalgically, but mostly artistically. It filled the hotel-restaurant Post in Ebnat-Kappel, which was to be demolished, with life once more. Artists from Eastern Switzerland transformed the empty rooms into objects of art and drew their inspiration from tourism. The rooms could be rented for an overnight stay and were open to free viewing and guided tours in the daytime.

    Approach in the room

    The pale green room instantly took my fancy; I immediately felt like combining it with other colours. Pressure built up inside me before I entered the room. Too many ideas had accumulated and still there was a certain indecisiveness in which direction it should go content-wise. When it was finally time to work in this room, I could only vent by splashing the first images on the wall with the drawing-ink bottle and by working with forceful, strong brush strokes. I was able to approach the next wall more calmly and suddenly, many eyes, knotholes, looked at me. From this, the figures arose effortlessly. Starting points emerged everywhere, topics solidified. Text was constantly added, the circle became complete with the front of the house and the feeling that everything has to be just like this set in.

    • 2014