Pierre Mertens and Willo Gonnissen

Scrawls explained

On the Hoogstraat the Broederschool had a weathered and somewhat damaged old façade.

There was an idea in the school to put a work of art on it. After some consultation between the school, the city and FLACC in the end a design by artists Willo Gonnissen and Pierre Mertens.

was chosen. Within the context of a school (students, teachers,and so on) and with a wall on a busy artial road as the 'canvas', a work of art was made which is happy, disarmingly simple, festive and meaningful all at once.

The students were allowed to help with the design by drawing a proposal for a work of art. Among hundreds of drawings, the spontaneous and direct work of the first pre-school class caught the eye immediately. The teacher wrote captions explaining the meaning of the toddlers' drawings. The combination of words and images worked surprisingly well poetically.

The artists have copied and enlarged some of the drawings and put them on the façade in neon tubes.

The illuminated drawings and words switch on and off in a playful rhythm, so the overall picture changes continually and the old weathered wall comes back to 'life'.

Broederschool, Hoogstraat