MURALS & DECORATIVE WALL EFFECTS
20 different styles and techniques to make your location stand out from the rest.
1 / Restaurant Brazil
Restaurant Brazil, Berlin (circa 1996). Unusually, I was employed part-time and spent over a year designing and painting at this popular Berlin landmark in the district of Mitte. Coming in before opening times, I would often work on, if there weren't too many guests, in a corner or up a ladder adding more and more details. Occasional fragments of Italian plaster ornaments I improved or extended with trompe l'oeil. A flag-ship restaurant in various ways... see more
2 / Design-Partners Showroom
Design-Partners, Idaplatz, Zurich (2014). Assisted by Andrew Suda and Maya Malfatti Woods. My wife and I established our design company in 2011 around the time we moved into this run down ex-grocers shop which became the showroom (www.design-partners.org). I divided all walls into proportionate panels within which I could present various painting and plastering techniques. Although all quite different, the feeling on the whole was homogeneous... see more
3 / Chapel of Atheism
Chapel of the Loving Atheist (2013/14) was an art installation I created in this side room of our Design-Partners studio in Zurich (featured above this one). It combined my various interests in conceptual art, classical architecture, atheism, and of course wall painting techniques. The texts were made using some old brass stencils I had recently discovered in a book shop, as well as hand-made stencils. Conception and realisation were a painstaking process... see more
4 / Fantasy Murals
Foyer, Kreuzberg Str.44, Berlin (1998). Assisted by Freida Rommel. With photographer Neil Hester we shot 22 friends, many of them artists and musicians on the Berlin scene, for these 4 murals plainly entitled Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring. A great deal of symbolism is going on, but what any of it means is anyone's guess. It was my first contract given a totally free hand, and the art quickly took over from merely decorating a building entrance... see more
5 / Bar Babushka
Bar Babushka, Blackfriars Road, London (1995). Assisted by Mathew Burbage. A few years ago it was closed down amid scandals (unconnected to my murals I should add), painted over and reopened under new management. But I found some working photos (forgive the quality) showing quite a theatrical backdrop featuring half a dozen famous artists, executed in more of a "painterly" style than usual, thanks to the collaboration with painter Mathew... see more
6 / Restaurant Verde
Restaurant Verde, Zurich (2013). Assisted by Andrew Suda. Some logo painting here at the new restaurant in the Expo Center (Messezentrum Zurich) plus some animal diagrams in white on wooden panels. Both aspects the contract involved transferring Andrin Scheizer Architects' own designs onto the newly constructed walls, and thus pretty straightforward, finished in about a week. The images were projected onto the walls with a video-projector... see more
7 / Elegant Stairways
5 Stairways, Kollwitz Platz, Berlin (1999). Assisted by Frieda Rommel. We developed five different colour concepts based loosely on seasons of the year for these five stairways, each of six stories, including for linoleum, doors and lacquered woodwork. The major painting work was carried out by site painters, then we came along towards completion with stencils to add our plant ornaments. This way of working I find quite satisfactory... see more
8 / Extravagant Stairways
Stairway, Kreuzberg Str.44, Berlin (1999). Assisted by Frieda Rommel. A different style for each of the six floors in this back stairway hidden in deepest Kreuzberg. Loosely chronological from Greek on the ground floor up to my weird graffiti in the penthouse, fake posters and wallpaper among other tricks were incorporated, Bauhaus and trompe l'oeil represented, and lots more besides. Most popular however were the little animals... see more
9 / Clothes Store Facade
Facade, Checkpoint, Berlin (2001). Assisted by Frieda Rommel. This was colourful work and good fun, and is still popular, although time battered and much graffitied by now. Seen from afar at the junction of busy shopping streets Mehringdamm and Geneisenauer Strasse, it was once cinema, until the new tenants turned the theater hall into a huge second hand fashion store. Outside, the first outlines were drawn at night using my trusty overhead-projector... see more
10 / Wallywoods Theatrical
Wallywoods, Kreuzberg, Berlin (2006). Established in 2004, this was my first gallery and events space at Chamisso Platz, in Berlin's multi-cultural Kreuzberg district. At the beginning I painted all the walls pale grey, a neutral background for exhibitions, which is how they stayed until I knew we were moving on. Then I handed out the brushes and invited guests to get painting. The only restriction was in the concept: chairs and human figures only please... see more
11 / Wallywoods Doodles
Wallywoods, Weissensee, Berlin (2007-10). Assisted by Marie-Cecile Lutta and Jack, among others. Half a million little chair doodles plus Marie-Cecile's many little figures drawn with Eddings, with the help of guests, on the walls and ceilings of my Wallywoods rooms at Kulturhaus Peter Edel (also known as the Culture Center of Weissensee). But that is my approximation. Try counting them yourself - the building is still there, albeit locked up and empty... see more
12 / Wallywoods Wild
The Colour Room at Wallywoods, Weissensee (2009/10). Assisted by Marie-Cecile Lutta and others. (See also the previous two examples.) Much like the final period of Wallywoods at Kreuzberg, I handed out the paints to MC and guests when we knew that we were moving out. By this time the gallery was completely filled with chairs and figures done in black Eddings on the white walls and pink and gray ceilings. The task now was to colour in the doodles... see more
13 / Playground
Playground, Berlin (2002). The rather dull outside walls of a courtyard or playground can be cheered up no end with a little imagination and colour. Graffiti is fashionable, of course, but has perhaps been over used by now. There are all kinds of alternatives. I myself don't like to use aerosols. The same effects can be achieved with normal paints, and a lot more besides, without filling the air with toxins. Here I made a pictorial puzzle... see more
14 / Quirky
Apartment, Paul-Robeson Strasse, Berlin (2000). Cheese, snails, toilets and telephones in our shared living room. And a big mouse head, although I've no idea anymore what it all meant, or if it meant anything at all. But my flatmates gave me free reign, which was great fun. I painted my bedroom across the hall very differently - fleshy, dark and womb-like; my strangest work. I so regret not having photographed it. But I do have this, by the late great Peter Woelck.
15 / Cloudy
Apartment, Mitte, Berlin (circa 1997). Known as Schwammtechnik in Germany, "sponge technique" is one of the most popular methods of quickly adding a cloudy or aged effect to the otherwise "flat" walls of a room. But beware, there are so many examples of this method gone horribly wrong - enough to put you off your pizza - precisely because it's been done too quickly. I work in thin layers, subtly deepening the structure, leaving no trace of that sponge!
16 / Dali & Other Masters
5 Ziegen Bar, Berlin (1994). The "5 Goats Bar" at Lychener Strasse in the former East Berlin was my first contract. Happily, Andreas' little cult venue and my painting are still there. Back in '94 I didn't have an overhead-projector, so this was made with a simple grid system. Dali has always been an inspiration of mine. I would practice drawing like him as a youngster. If you would like a Dali, or your own favourite artist, recreated on your wall/s, just get in touch.
17 / Schools
Working with kids is fun. And messy. Give them a theme, attempt to lay some ground rules, step back and see what happens. This was at a junior school in Pankow, Berlin (2009). Some children need their confidence building up to get started, while others get stuck in without a thought. Most of the work is setting the stage, mopping up mishaps and clearing up at the end! Never-the-less, commissions and workshops in schools and youth projects gladly undertaken.
18 / Ceilings & Floors
Ceilings and floors can also be decorated with painting and other techniques, in traditional ways or something more experimental, but the possibilities are often overlooked. Simply said, it's hard working up a ladder, and with an involved design like this one, will need time. Which is why so many ceilings are plain white - like great big empty canvases! And the rewards can be impressive. This belonged to my Chapel art installation in Zurich from early in 2014.
19 / Objects
Painting on objects makes a change from hopping up and down a ladder. Whether clothes or furniture; or anything at all, if humanly possible. If you have something you would like painted on, I would like to paint it. A car, a boat, a motor-cycle helmet? As a trained architectural and special effects model-maker (my original professions) I have experience in airbrushing, masking, and designing and working in 3D across a wide range of materials.
20 / Signs & Logos
Sign painting and logos inside and out, for store fronts, pubs, offices etc are something I enjoy as much as scenic painting. I use mainly stencils and can design or reproduce just about anything required. Working by hand with paints may be old fashioned, but computer-plotted stick-on foils are everywhere nowadays, and very dull, regardless how shiny or expensive the plastic. In this sense I suppose I am, once again, a stubborn traditionalist!
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