Viva Lewes Issue #153 June 2019

Lothar Götz, in front of his installation at the MAC Belfast . Photo by Jordan Hutchins
Lothar Götz
Transforming the Towner
“I like the Bauhaus idea of Gesamtkunstwerk”
says the artist Lothar Götz when I ask him
how he describes his large, site-specific wall
paintings. “An artwork where different areas
– architecture, design, painting, colour – meet
without a clear border. I was always interested
in that crossover.”
Citing influences as diverse as the aweinspiring
painted interiors of Baroque
churches, to the pared-back modernist
aesthetic of the Bauhaus, Lothar creates
bright, geometric abstract artworks on an epic
scale. This month sees the unveiling of his
largest painting to date: the transformation
of the entire exterior of the Towner Gallery
in Eastbourne. Commissioned to celebrate
the gallery’s tenth anniversary in its current
building, the painted façade will remain in situ
until May 2020.
As we chat on Skype, Lothar holds up a sketch
for ‘Dance Diagonal’, which will, by the time
you read this, wrap the gallery’s huge walls in
converging, technicolour diagonals. His design
responds to different architectural details
on the building: the curved window alcoves,
the jutting balcony and the unpredictable
movement that will be created by the curved
gallery walls. “The exciting thing with these
wall paintings and site-specific works on this
scale is that you can plan them – and you have
to plan them quite precisely so that you know
where to start – but there is still this element of
surprise, where you don’t know exactly what it
will look like.”
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