On show until 14 April 2024 
For the 31st edition of Kunsthal Light, the artist Machteld Rullens is creating a site- specific work in the twenty-five-meter-long display window along the ramp of Kunsthal Rotterdam.

For Scrap Yard Abstraction, Rullens is transforming carboard packaging, sourced from the Kunsthal, into colourful wall objects. The works in the installation will interact with each other, the architecture of HALL 6, and the large mural Rullens will also create. 

Rullens adds her own twist to the conventions of painting by using cardboard as her canvas.  Rather than facing a blank canvas, she prefers working with boxes, which allow her a lot  With the help of layers of oil paint and epoxy resin, Rullens shapes and rearranges the soft cardboard  boxes to create hard sculptures with a shiny, porcelain-like skin. She thus transforms the packaging materials, with their transient nature, into durable objects. As the Kunsthal’s ramp further descends, the sculptural objects get flatter, increasingly resembling traditional paintings. In the background, Rullens will also create a large mural, based on the shape of flat, unfolded boxes. 

Machteld Rullens 

Machteld Rullens (1988) lives and works in The Hague. She studied at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague and the Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam. In 2019, Rullen received the Dutch Royal Award for Modern Painting. Her work has been exhibited during multiple solo and group exhibitions in places like Amsterdam, Los Angeles, New York, and Japan. Rullens is represented by Galerie Martin van Zomeren in Amsterdam, Sorry We’re Closed in Brussels, and Overduin&Co in Los Angeles.