Lothar's Talk, Hope XChange
- Lucy Archer
- Mar 7, 2017
- 1 min read
The Hope Xchange is the new business/conference centre in Sunderland, which also contains hire space for companies. For the architecture of this building, the architects designed something combining the old and the new. A theme throughout the architecture is crossings, and Lothar had to take this into consideration for his commissioned pieces. He created a mostly diamond-shape pattern, with the odd variation in shape. The piece in the entrance of the building starts behind the reception desk, then stretches and distorts across the ceiling before resuming to its original pattern in the next two sections, with the second section continuing to the third. This work is site-specific; it would not work without the architecture which holds it. Lothar wanted pure colour for his work, no texture, so he used rollers rather than brushes. For his second piece, in this context, he is competing with the furniture. Due to the site context, it becomes more than pure abstract art, it comes into design as well. He went with a tonal colour scheme different to the first painting so its seen as separate. When displaying in a public space, Lothar had to think practically as it is more likely to be exposed to wear and tear so he uses a mixture of acrylic paint and varnish as it makes the acrylic stronger and you can’t see marks or fingerprints on it.
