Lothar Götz transforms Towner's exterior walls into s large-scale artwork

EASTBOURNE.- German artist Lothar Götz transformed the exterior walls of Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, into a large-scale, colourful geometric mural this summer.

Götz, who is based in the U.K., was chosen from 60 artists and designers from an open call for The Brewers Towner Commission to create an artwork to mark the 10th anniversary of the gallery’s move from its original home in Eastbourne’s Old Town. Drawing on its architecture, angles and unique exterior recesses and alcoves, Götz’s mural - his largest to date - envelops the length and width of three sides of the award-winning building.

Götz’s work – typically large-scale paintings, drawings and installations that respond to existing architectural structures – has included commissions for South Bank Centre, London (2014) and Leeds Art Gallery (2017). This is his first major public commission on the south coast and the first time an artist has been commissioned to create an artwork for Towner’s exterior.

The Brewers Towner Commission has been rendered in the artist’s signature style using paint supplied by Brewers Decorator Centres, a national company founded and based in Eastbourne. The commission, which coincides with the launch of the £54m redevelopment of Eastbourne’s Devonshire Quarter, will be in situ for one year.

Götz was chosen by a selection panel that included Joe Hill, Director of Towner Art Gallery, Mark Brewer, Chairman of Brewers Decorator Centres, David Dimbleby, Chairman of Towner Art Gallery, Dinah Casson, Deputy Chair of Towner Art Gallery and Kiera Blakey, Curator for Art on the Underground.

Says Towner Art Gallery Director, Joe Hill: ‘We are delighted to commission Lothar Götz to create a new work for the exterior of our building this year, marking our 10th anniversary in this space and utilising the exterior of our building for a unique large-scale artwork for the first time. Götz’s signature style of bright, engaging colours, geometric patterns and bold large-scale works will allow visitors and residents to engage with the gallery in a new way this summer.’

Says Lothar Götz: ‘To paint the entire rendered wall space of the Towner Art Gallery offers an amazing canvas, and to realise a painting of that scale in such a prominent public position of Eastbourne really is a kind of dream project for me. The [building’s] façade with its three-dimensional qualities will turn the painting into a kind of giant sculpture addressing the boundaries and crossovers between art and architecture, painting and sculpture and public and institutional spaces. Visible from several prominent viewpoints of the town with a wide range of different audiences, the painting will conceptually sit somewhere between street art and minimalism/abstraction and therefore hopefully offer a range of diverse viewings and readings.’

Says Mark Brewer, Chairman of Brewers Decorator Centres: ‘Brewers Decorator Centres are thrilled to be working on this exciting project with the Towner Art Gallery. As a family business that started in Eastbourne in 1904, we feel passionately about the life of the town in all its dimensions, not least the cultural life. Lothar Götz is a worthy winner of this prestigious prize. His dynamic style and use of vibrant colour will transform Towner Art Gallery’s building into a spectacular work of art.’

Says Towner Art Gallery‘s Chair of Trustees David Dimbleby: ‘We’re delighted to be celebrating ten years in the Towner gallery building with this exciting commission. Along with the Towner staff and Trust, I’m proud to be working with Brewers Decorator Centres to bring a new temporary public artwork by an artist of Lothar’s calibre to Eastbourne’s visitors and residents. I very much look forward to seeing the finished work when it is unveiled later this year. ‘

Founded in 1923 as an art gallery for the people of Eastbourne, Towner Art Gallery has been collecting and exhibiting contemporary art for the last hundred years. It moved to its current premises, designed by Rick Mather Architects, in 2009.

Lothar Götz (b.1963) lives and works in London. He graduated with a BA Visual Communication at FH Aachen (1988); MA Aesthetics at University of Wuppertal (1995); and MA Painting at the Royal College of Art, London (1998). His practice ranges from site-specific wall paintings and room-sized spatial installations to paintings and drawings, all of which reference and engage with ideas about architecture and space.

Götz has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions and commissions include Lothar Götz - Backstage, David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen (2018); Staircase Commission, supported by The Art Fund, Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds (2017); Threesome, Petra Rinck Galerie, Düsseldorf (2016); Pas de Trois, Domobaal, London (2016); Composition for a Staircase, site–specific mural, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (2016); Lothar Götz/Duncan Grant, (accompanying 21st Century Perspectives on Murals & Art for Public Spaces academic conference), The Russell Chantry at The Collection, Lincoln (2016); Concrete Fantasies, York College Gallery, York (2015); Emotional Abstraction, Kunsthalle Memmingen, Bavaria (2015); Lothar Götz, The House of St Barnabas, London (2015); Conversations with The Devil, Petra Rinck Galerie, Düsseldorf (2014); and Project 07: Lothar Götz, Contemporary Art Society, London (2014).

Recent group exhibitions include: Fully Awake, Royal College of Art, London (2018); drawing/collage, Yoshimi Arts, Osaka (2018); Chair Chair Chair Lamp Table Bed Sofa, David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen (2018); Colour and Perception: from Seurat to Riley, Compton Verney, Warwickshire (2017); Turps Gallery, London (2016); and Drawing Biennial 2015, Drawing Room, London (2015).

Awards include the Abbey Fellowship with The British School at Rome (2010) and the Cocheme Fellowship Central Saint Martins, Byam Shaw School of Art, London (2006). Lothar Götz is represented by Domobaal in London and Petra Rinck Gallery in Düsseldorf.