Abandoned Military Buildings – 2020

Installation (painting, laser cut plexiglass, webcam, projector)

Abandoned military buildings

In the twentieth century, humanity has transformed its environment to an ever greater extent. Everyone has seen abandoned military bunkers in places remote from civilization.. Nature is beginning to reclaim these buildings that have lost their functions. Think of Chernobyl’s residential parks and the sunken ships that turn into coral reefs that are possessed by various creatures. These constructions are mementos sometimes reminiscent of former destruction.

Although the works deal with a war theme, they are devoid of political stance and primarily look at the impact on nature and destruction. The meetingpoint between civilization and nature is emphasized.

In the image of William Turner’s Steamboat in a Snowstorm, natural forces still dominate humanity’s sea-defying technology. But here the situation is reversed. The image of the painting observed by the webcam is projected back from the black and white plexiglas, creating a kind of digitalized projection of reality. In contrast to traditional oil and the tools of the 21st century. The art forms complement each other and create a new composition by rethinking traditional landscape painting.

In addition to the anti-aircraft (Maunsell sea forts) airstrips on the La Manche Channel, two other paintings depict the Nekoma Center pyramid, a memento of the Cold War nuclear apocalypse and remnants of a deserted airport control tower in the Californian desert.

From the sea to the desert to the rolling fields, traces of tense 20th-century history can be found everywhere. Painted or plexiglass constructions are stripped down into a seemingly inappropriate medium and, like a black box, commemorate the violent destructive and hostile moments of our recent past. In doing so, we are warned of the excesses of our civilization.