The body of works »Beyond Interiors II« consists of the series Badeblätter, Miramonte and Congress. The cutouts and cut-paper silhouettes are interpretations of the once classy Austrian health resort Bad Gastein,
which meanwhile has mutated into a ghost town. Magnificent historical buildings at the steep slopes to the Bad Gastein waterfall have been vacant and in state of decay for years, amongst them the five historical buildings Haus Austria, Hotel Straubinger, Badeschloss (»bathing castle«), k. u. k. Postamt (imperial-royal post office) and the Kongresszentrum (conference center).

My cutouts and cut-paper silhouettes were created from on-site image-material. The Badeblätter and the Congress-series quote the conference center, which was built by the Austrian architect Gerhard Garstenauer in 1970 and closed again in January 2007. Since then, the imposing structure is exposed to a state of decay and neglect. The central issue of my work is the bordering flora and fauna silently recapturing this impressive concrete building, and as a consequence thereof the penetration of interior and exterior space.

The cut-paper silhouettes of the Congress-series are abstractions of this occupation. In addition, the Badeblätter-cutouts quote scenes of medical treatments from adverts published in the Bad Gasteiner Badeblätter, a journal released from 193o until 197o. The works from the Miramonte-series are variations of an identical Bad Gastein mountain panorama, which becomes a stage for fantastic crossings of the border and magical snapshots, using the letterhead of the Hotel Miramonte with a photography by Giovanni Castell.

The project »Beyond Interiors II« was realised with the project grant sommer.frische.kunst in June 2013.

Nikola Röthemeyer, June 2013