Murals Inc. presents ‘Wall : Painting’ – an exhibition on scale enlargement and reduction in relation to painting on wall and on canvas.

Murals are often monumental. The impact of a monumental mural on the viewer is significant. What happens when a painter allows his working method to fluctuate in dimensional proportions? What skills do you need to bring both the complex architectural support and the ‘simple’ white canvas to life? Marie Aly, Jasper van der Graaf, Johannes Mundinger, and Pavel Rtue are painters who create large murals as well as work on canvas. During the exhibition ‘Wall : Painting’, they will show their handling of both media.

In addition to the experiences of dimensional relationships and the questions it raises, ‘Wall : Painting’ also simply shows four renowned painters interacting to create a wonderful exhibition, each of them conveying a substantively motivated painting style. Come to the exhibition, let the dimensional relationships take effect on you, take pictures, post them on Instagram, and experience the exhibition again but then on your small screen.

Murals Inc. is with the exhibition ‘Wall : Painting’ part of Rotterdam Art Week (9-12 February 2023, location: Piekstraat 31, Rotterdam) and Art Central Rotterdam XL Art Weekend (17-19 March 2023, location: Piekstraat 31 and Baanhof, Rotterdam)

Murals Inc. presenteert ‘Wall : Painting’ – een tentoonstelling over schaalvergroting en -verkleining in relatie tot het schilderen op muur en doek.

Muurschilderingen zijn vaak monumentaal. De impact van een monumentale muurschildering op de toeschouwer is groot. Wat gebeurd er als een schilder zijn werkwijze in maatverhoudingen laat fluctueren? Welke skills heb je nodig om zowel de complexe architectonische drager als het ‘simpele’ witte doek tot leven te brengen? Marie Aly, Jasper van der Graaf, Johannes Mundinger en Pavel Rtue zijn schilders die zowel grote muurschilderingen maken als op doek werken. Tijdens de tentoonstelling ‘Wall : Painting’ zullen zij hun omgang met beide media tonen.

Naast de ervaringen van de maatverhoudingen en de vragen die dat oproept, toont ‘Wall : Painting’ ook gewoon vier gerenommeerde schilders die in wisselwerking een prachtige tentoonstelling neerzetten en waarbij ieder apart een inhoudelijk gemotiveerde schilderstijl uitdragen. Kom naar de tentoonstelling, laat de maatverhoudingen op je inwerken, maak foto's, plaats ze op Instagram en ervaar opnieuw de tentoonstelling maar dan op je schermpje.

Murals Inc. is met de tentoonstelling ‘Wall : Painting’ onderdeel van Rotterdam Art Week (9-12 februari 2023, location: Piekstraat 31, Rotterdam) en Art Central Rotterdam XL Art Weekend (17-19 maart 2023, location: Piekstraat 31 en Baanhof, Rotterdam).

Marie Aly

Marie Alys (Berlin, 1980) paintings originate from her will to portray the world. Bright and colorful images reveal a world filled with iconic figures placed in renaissance landscapes that hold cocktail glasses or Prada purses, some wear peace buttons or hold their mobile. Some may have evolved from historical figures or religious icons, others rather from LP covers or fashion scenes, as if Matthias Grünewald meets Daniel Richter. Their acratic appearance is both timeless and contemporary. Marie Alys paintings always contain something mystic  because they aim beyond conventions, and come straight from the soul of the maker.

The timeless and the contemporary can be considered the result of Aly’s direct and intuitive style of painting. She centers the cultural or symbolic meaning of her subjects by integrating concepts and techniques from other times and places. Her paintings originate from a process where intuition is the most important principle, and in which the image pushes itself forward during the act of painting. This is not a conceptual process. Rather, it stems from a sense of absolute painterly freedom for the artist.

Marie Aly studied painting under Ralf Kerbach at the art academy in Dresden. For her master, she received a scholarship from the Kulturstiftung Sachsen. From 2008 to 2010 she was a resident at de Ateliers in Amsterdam. In 2009 she won the Royal Dutch Painting Prize. In 2013, received a commission to produce four murals for Kasteel Slangenburg in Doetinchem, and is now commissioned to do a large-scale mural for the German ministry of inner affairs in Berlin. Her work has been exhibited at various renowned international locations and is included in numerous esteemed private and public collections.

Johannes Mundinger

The work of Johannes Mundinger (1982, Offenburg, Germany, lives in Berlin) often refers to its certain environment or certain places, dealing with the historical or social context or playing aesthetically with given elements or atmospheres, which is used as a base from where the motive is developed. 

Mundinger graduated from Münster School of Design, and also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Brussels. He has exhibited with institutions and galleries, such as the Kunstverein Freiburg, Museum Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, Germany or Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia. He had his first institutional solo exhibition at Kunstverein Offenburg in 2017 and his first Museum exhibition at Yeoju Museum, Korea, 2020.

Together with Sophia Hirsch he won the jury prize of the Berliner Kunstverein, for their installation Kritische Masse, in 2013. Mundinger was invited as an artist in Residence to Israel, South Korea, and Serbia. His murals can be found in many European cities, but also in Mexico City, Jerusalem, and Atlantic City.

Jasper van der Graaf

The paintings and murals of Jasper van der Graaf (1975) are composed of clean surfaces, elastic lines, and dynamic structures, which seem to attract and repel each other. The spontaneous abstract constructions are reminiscent of forms from nature, crystals, or stretched chewing gum. Van der Graaf’s work is graphically tight, non-figurative, and possesses a (sometimes implied) orderliness. Within abstract art, Van der Graaf occupies a place all his own.

Van der Graaf’s work is created in small designs in the collage technique. To this end, old designs are constantly taken apart, then incrementally evaluated into new ones. In the form and color choice of wall works, Van der Graaf takes the spatial conditions into account, creating an interplay between space, form, chance, and choice. 

Jasper van der Graaf graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam in 1999. His work can be seen at home and abroad, most recently at Transmitter, New York, Mondriaanhuis, Amersfoort, HEDEN, The Hague, PARK, Tilburg, PHK18, Rotterdam and Rob de Vries Gallery & Projects. Van der Graaf is also active as a curator.

Pavel Rtue

Pavel Rtue born in 1989 is an emerging street artist from Sevastopol, Ukraine. Recently, he has been catching a lot of attention through his abstract pieces and murals on the internet and social media.

He started spraying in the 2000s practicing typical graffiti fonts. In his first attempts, he was trying to imitate amazing graffiti writing that he saw in magazines. Gradually developed his recognizable abstract style. In 2012 he found a way to express his unique style that he was able to call his “own”. Nevertheless, he is always looking for new techniques without losing the desire to experiment and discover new approaches in graffiti. He himself describes his works appropriately as contemporary abstraction and experimental muralism.

Lately, Rtue devoted himself to an internal journey in order to find a new way of interacting with the artwork. He felt that a perfect composition meant not everything, instead, he began always searching for figurative and harmonic solutions. Finally, in his most recent artworks, he tries to combine conscious and unconscious impressions hidden deep inside him.

Rtue is an emerging artist that combines approaches of traditional graffiti, abstraction, and figurative images and thereby creates rough, transient, and highly expressive artworks.

Murals Inc. was celebrating the new year on Sunday, 22 January, with the opening of ‘Wall : Painting’. With Jasper van der Graaf, Marie Aly, Johannes Mundinger and Pavel Rtue. Also, Murals Inc. is celebrating her fifth anniversary this year.



Festive opening: ‘Wall : Painting’

Date: Sunday 22 January 2023

Time: 15.00 - 18:00 hr

Location: Murals Inc. (office), Piekstraat 31, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Catering: Wine (freedom blend) and mezze by Gulyan catering

Music: Boombox Iris



#opening #newyear #lustrum #birthdaymvw