Hundertwasser - Bringing Colour to the Tate Burghfield (Copy)

I love my local art group! Not to be thwarted by corona virus they have been coming up with novel ideas to challenge us and to keep the group active, albeit by distance. This week's challenge was to learn about the Austrian artist and environmental campaigner, Friedensreich Hundertwasser and create our own Hundertwasser-themed mural design for a fictitious building, the Tate Burghfield. This could get colourful!

Www.Hundertwasser.com

The Challenge

The challenge was to create artwork for a mural for our fictitious new art gallery to showcase all our lockdown art. Here’s the brief:

The new Tate Burghfield building will be based on the architecture and philosophy of artist and environmental campaigner Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928-2000). Plans for the overall building design are at a late stage and it will be similar to the Museum Hundertwasser in Vienna, with trees and plants built into the buildings facade. However three areas of the building have yet to be designed. Burghfield Art group have been asked to come up with a Hundertwasser themed mural to adorn either a courtyard, a bathroom or the cafe wall, your choice. His artworks are wonderfully colourful, playful and have a mosaic quality to them. Comparisons are often drawn between him and Klimt. Hundertwasser used a variety of media including coloured pencils and recycled materials so really anything goes.

The Hundertwasser Museum in Vienna

Who was Hundertwasser?

Born in Vienna on 15 December 1928 as Friedrich Stowasser, he was better known by his pseudonym Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Hundertwasser was known for his artworks, architecture and his writings. His artwork had a clear style of its own and he was opposed to straight lines or standardisation, which resulted in his unusual and easily recognisable style. He was said to have described straight lines as godless and immoral! This is perhaps why so much of his work uses spirals and other fluid forms and shapes.

There is a really good summary of his life and works on the Hundertwasser official website so I won’t go into detail here but it is well worth a read.

Suffice to say that Hundertwasser’s work has featured widely all over the world and influenced many other artists who followed him. You may have seen evidence of this without even realising it. Hundertwasser died in 2000 whilst on board the QEII and is buried beneath a tulip tree in New Zealand.