Adriane Wachholz :
Coming Home

Project no longer on view.

"Coming Home" is the title of a wall painting and installation on one of the outside walls of the state-run nursing home in Mödling. The entire façade has been painted in what might look like an abstract color pattern if not for the reduced forms of the white birds clearly juxtaposed against the background. The birds make us take a closer look, and we discover a forest consisting four color levels – two hues of gray, green, and light blue. The colors represent different stages of dusk and the accompanying color changes in nature. Adriane Wachholz interweaves her illusionary space with real space. We are drawn into the play of light and shade of her painting, giving us the illusion of actually standing among the birds and no longer knowing where the fruit garden next to the house ends and the forest begins. In the middle of this painted landscape, the real world pushes through in the form of three windows with bright yellow window shutters. Because of the different perspectives used in the representation of the window shutters – the three on the left are painted and the three on the right are made of aluminum – reality is distorted yet again. Like in a picture-puzzle that can be read in two ways at the same time, the borders separating inside and outside become blurred. Especially at night, the mass of the nursing home building appears to transform into a forest in which the windows are floating. When the sun sets, a timer triggers a pulsing light inside the windows. It does not matter that many of the building’s inhabitants go to bed at six o’clock, the light still serves as a reminder that there is always much life behind the façade.

The forest on the wall represents a kind of metaphorical window – a bridge between the home’s interior, its inhabitants, and the outside world. The artist transforms the building and its surroundings into a unified whole. The small, light-colored, fluffy forms in her painting remind us of the cherry blossoms from the trees in the garden next-door. The birds and the wide-open window shutters symbolize a lively home that is open to the outside world. Adriane Wachholz also refers to the function of the nursing home, which she imagines as a kind of bird’s nest: The artist says: "In nature, as well as in the nursing home, it’s all about nourishment, support, and care – about community and creating a safe environment." Adriane Wachholz directs our gaze toward existing spaces, while also broadening it metaphysically by combining reality and illusion. Her engagement with inside and outside – with the house as a private refuge – and with nature runs through her entire artistic practice. The artist often designs her works like stage backdrops. She combines different media – such as drawing, painting, sculpture, and video projections – and blends reality with illusion. Elaborate, large-scale trompe-l’oeil drawings are set off by reduced forms. She often uses graphite to draw architectural elements or landscapes directly on a wall, creating a surface onto which she projects videos of nature, like films with trees and sky.
(Cornelia Offergeld)