JAMES REKA
LOST & FOUND
23.04.21 ~ 30.04.21
Since relocating to Berlin from Melbourne in 2013, I have spent eight years working on a long term project exploring and painting in the vast selection of abandoned buildings, Industrial factories and military bases located in what was once Soviet-occupied East Germany. I wanted to uncover what remained in the debris that may reveal clues to these structures' former history or purpose. The findings were to be a source of inspiration to paint a series of 'abandoned objects'.
Over the last many years of exploring, what I ended up finding particularly intriguing, apart from the sheer beauty of the decaying remains, was the additional evidence left behind by the explorers and painters who visited these abandoned locations in the years and decades before me. Each person inadvertently adds debris and alters the remains somehow through their interactions with and explorations of the sites.
Many painters like myself painted murals or graffiti in these locations. I noted that some in the past had discarded their empty spray cans, paint-tins and other painting materials amongst the debris. I decided to start searching for and collecting these beautifully, naturally decayed and rusted paint tins and cans. The intention was to use them as a medium for me to manipulate and paint directly onto. I began a process that was, in a sense, a reinvention of these discarded objects.
Through my intervention, these objects discarded as rubbish transform into precious and desirable artworks. Painting tools that past explorers had already used to create are now part of the creation process again. This idea that I have the power to alter these objects' destiny, giving them a new history through my painting process, became the foundations for 'Lost & Found'.
The works in this catalogue are some of the first works in the series. They are the results of my years exploring these abandoned structures hunting for the historical clues scattered amongst the decay and the unique objects left behind by explorers. The resulting artworks are my addition to the history of some of the discarded and decaying physical items that I collected along the way.
A decade's worth of documentation from my adventures is currently being collated into a publication to offer a deeper insight into this process which has become the primary source of inspiration and a fundamental part of my art practice. The 'Lost & Found' book will mark a decade of the murals painted in these spaces in Berlin and East Germany and the objects sourced along that way that I transformed. The publication is aiming for release in late 2022 ~ early 2023.
- James Reka
