For the 31st edition of Kunsthal Light, the artist Machteld Rullens is creating a site-specific work in the twenty-five-meter-long display window along the ramp of Kunsthal Rotterdam. For Scrap Yard Abstraction, Rullens is transforming carboard packaging, sourced from the Kunsthal, into colourful wall objects. The works in the installation will interact with each other, the architecture of HALL 6, and the large mural Rullens will also create.
Rullens adds her own twist to the conventions of painting by using cardboard as her canvas. Rather than facing a blank canvas, she prefers working with boxes, which allow her a lot more freedom and enable her to handle the material in a more impulsive way. With the help of layers of oil paint and epoxy resin, Rullens shapes and rearranges the soft cardboard boxes to create hard sculptures with a shiny, porcelain-like skin. She thus transforms the packaging materials, with their transient nature, into durable artworks. As the Kunsthal’s ramp further descends, the sculptural objects get flatter, increasingly resembling traditional paintings. In the background, Rullens will also create a large mural, based on the shape of flat, unfolded boxes.
Machteld Rullens
Machteld Rullens (1988) lives and works in The Hague. She studied at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague and the Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam. In 2019, Rullen received the Dutch Royal Award for Modern Painting. Her work has been exhibited during multiple solo and group exhibitions in places like Amsterdam, Los Angeles, New York, and Japan. Rullens is represented by Galerie Martin van Zomeren in Amsterdam, Sorry We're Closed in Brussels, and Overduin&Co in Los Angeles.
Kunsthal Light
Kunsthal Light is the Kunsthal’s talent development programme. Since 2011, this exhibition programme has specifically focused on young artists who are able to make a ‘broad gesture’ in an original and artistic way. To this end, three times a year the Kunsthal places HALL 6 (the over 25-meter-long display window along the ramp) at the disposal of an artist who is then given free rein to make a site-specific work. The public is able to follow the development of the work from outside. Part of the presentation is an Artist Talk with the artist.
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