Large watercolor painting of Alfred Kaut building - Curious? -  as the german Neugierig means.

E-WÄR E-KLIMA-KAUT

Thomas Schürmann, 2019, Aquarell,
Schmincke Horadam, Rives Arches Grain Torchon,
Size: 105 cm x 47 cm

Large-format watercolor of the former factory building of the Wuppertal-based company Alfred Kaut GmbH + Co. in the Wuppertal health street. The watercolour in the format 105 cm x 47 cm shows the facade of the factory building of the company Kaut in a hybrid stage of 2008 and 2018.

E-WÄR E-KLIMA-KAUT

Curious? - as the german Neugierig means.

The Wuppertal-based company Alfred Kaut GmbH + Co. maintained its headquarters in the Gesundheitsstraße/Tannenbergstraße until approx. 1994. When I walked past the building in March 2017, Kaut had long since become a proverbial story at the location and the title letters had long since disappeared. I found the indigo blue or ultramarine blue façade interesting, the regular structure of which is interrupted by graffiti.

The facade of the flat workshop or production building is divided into 5 segments. A grey slatted roller shutter dominates the left half of the picture, to the right 4 identical sections form a regularly repeating pattern. The sections are divided into 2 parts, the lower section is tiled in blue, the upper section has pearl glass windows in steel frames that allow light into the interior. One can vaguely see the supporting statics of the hall through the milky glass.

Almost 2000 individually painted rectangular tiles form a rhythmic and lively background for the other two elements of the picture. A mossy Opel Rekord C station wagon, which has already seen its best days, stands in front of a poster explaining the anti-Aids campaign.

A grey stripe of trapezoidal sheet metal clad façade towers above this composition, forming the vertical end of the building to the flat roof. In 2008 it still contained some of the letters that formed the company name before the move: Wärme-Kälte-Klima-Kaut. In the background you can see a faded facade advertisement for the scene magazine HEINZ. Next to the painting, a ladder leads to a roof on the next level. Although the road slopes to the left, the situation between the building, the poster and the yellow Opel Rekord C seems to be in balance. The sky remains in the formerly typical Wuppertal rain clouds. The facades of the building look like the doors - closed.

In contrast to many other of my pictures, this picture is a hybrid composition, i.e. not all of the objects and graffiti depicted were at the same place with the others at the same time. Also the Opel Rekord C 2008 parked a few meters to the right. I moved it to the left.

Details

No two tiles are alike. Opaque white or other non-watercolour-specific techniques were not used. The intensity of the image can hardly be judged in digital reproduction. The image is over 1 meter wide.