'Lothar Götz, Pool' at Holden Gallery, Manchester

Lothar Götz, Pool 14 July – 21 August 2021 Painter Lothar Götz unveils a new, immersive site-specific wall painting filling the Holden Gallery. Lothar Götz is a painter responding to site, space and colour. His work spans from drawings and paintings to large scale wall paintings on interior and exterior walls of buildings. Götz' is known for his use of abstract geometric forms and abundance of colour, responding to a space by its architectural characteristics and features. “One of my first associations when visiting the Holden Gallery was a feeling like entering an empty swimming pool. The sense of a vast space which one has the urge to fill. Like the urge to fill an empty pool, I had the desire to fill the space with colour.” Lothar Götz Pool is a new commission which will transform the Holden Gallery into a vibrant, colourful receptacle, completely altering the viewer's experience of the space. Götz will paint the full interior walls of the gallery, while the rest of the space will be stripped of all objects and freestanding walls. Pool responds to the distinct Victorian architecture of the Holden Gallery. Götz explains, “on a site visit, the gallery was in between exhibitions showing its empty white walls and its dominant historical architectural features. The stone arches and pillars give away the history of the place. In contrast to the stone arches the white walls are naturalizing the space after each show, kind of eradicating its history and always preparing the space for the now and future. I found this contradiction fascinating and it made me wish to connect the two different spatial elements of the exhibition hall. The wall painting takes the historical arches as starting point for the composition and fills the white space in between with colour. All wall space up to half height of the room will be painted so that the viewer will be surrounded by colour as if swimming under water in a pool.” Pool is kindly supported by Crown Paints Ltd