In August I was artist-in-resident at KuBa Kulturbahnhof in a rural area of northeast Germany. I was planning to work on my personal project Ondergroei (Undergrowth), in writing and printmaking. And I did so, but with a complete different approach and letting go most of my expectations. In stead I claimed two rooms of the former station main building. Or did the walls claim me and my time, by seducing me with their gorgeous layered patina of beautiful colors and scraps of wallpaper? I was surprised to find myself making big drawings in the atelier and creating installations with them in the abandoned station. It was a joy to work large scale, to use my full body in order to draw and paste, to let the drawing interact with the wall and the wall with the paper. It was a great experience to feel open to react on what was in front in me, to work with the unique qualities of the residency space situated between forest and human made landscape, to find abundance within the limited materials provided, to rhyme peeling wallpaper and flaky layers of paint with bark of birch trees and shady woods. To feel that you can suggest a whole world by making only a few interventions.

Somehow ‘skin’ became a theme, as I was trying ‘to crawl into the skin’ of the villain, a Dutch expression to tell that you want to empathize with someone. This in order to be able to write his story. While I was postponing the writing, I was creating his skin, out of paper, glue, some oil pastel and whatever came from the wall to stick at my brush. His paper skin got connected with the wall, the wall’s patina became the backdrop of a forest scenery, the wallpaper that used to be the buildings skin left the walls naked but I let it return as paper birches to form a forest together with the tree trunks that I dragged into the building. I drew the villain in three of his signature postures, interacting with the placement on the walls. By doing all this I was able to physically relate to the character and explore his world from within.

By adding another layer on the aged textured walls I both gave my villain a history and the building an additional story. I’m curious how this story will develop, who will meet at the station, and how this experience will affect my storytelling.