"Gimme Five"

20 × 4,20 m · 84 m²

Chassé Theater, Breda / NL 2023

"Gimme Five" grew out of the further development of my work "Eight in one stroke". The form developed in that work is created with a custom-built Ottotool: eight brushes are arranged to produce a single form. Through repeatedly working with the same form, I began experimenting with different colour variations and eventually introduced a continuous colour gradient across the eight brush strokes.

When Blind Walls Gallery invited me in 2023 to create a mural on a 20-metre-long, 4.20-metre-high wall at the Chassé Theater in Breda, I saw an opportunity to push this development into a new scale. My idea was to use the same form five times, overlapping each one by one third. Each form was given its own colour world.

The eight brush strokes of the Ottotool are each 15 cm wide and contain eight carefully graduated tones. For each colour world, I started with the darkest tone and developed the gradient by progressively adding white in measured proportions.

The overlaps became an essential part of the final composition. The colours were deliberately kept slightly transparent rather than fully opaque. Where two forms overlap, new intermediate colours emerge. These colours were not planned or tested beforehand. Instead, they appeared through the physical process itself. The five individual forms therefore merge into a new, continuous overall shape.

Working at this scale was a particular physical challenge. With the help of a single-person lift, I was able to work across the entire wall. I was supported by an assistant throughout the three-day installation. The Ottotool extends 165 cm from its centre to its outer edge, giving it a diameter of 3.30 metres. The tool had to be repeatedly held, swung, reloaded with paint and stripped of excess colour. The process was physically demanding and required intense concentration throughout.

At the same time, the repetition and physical movement became almost meditative. The planning establishes a system, but the work only truly takes shape through the actual movement on the wall.

With "Gimme Five", my original vision came together: a form that works as a single artwork gains an entirely different presence through repetition and overlap. The way the composition holds together from a distance particularly confirmed my interest in developing this approach further at an architectural scale.