In 2014 Ed Kluz exhibited a collection of sixteen large collages in his first solo museum exhibition 'The Lost House Revisited' at the Mascalls Gallery in Kent. The project was the culmination of several years research. In 2017 this project was published as a fully illustrated book by Merrell.
The great houses depicted in the first series of collages were constructed as expressions of wealth and power. Fire, war, loss of fortune and social change all played a part in their demise and destruction. Traces often remain in the landscape - the earthworks of a garden terrace, an avenue of trees leading to a blank space, the sunken pit of a filled-in cellar, a solitary pair of gate piers marking an entrance. Aside from fragmentary remains, their existence is preserved in folkloric memory and their tangible absence from the landscape they once occupied.
These traces and memories are catalysts for Kluz's work. These buildings which now only exist in the imagination, are rendered through the structural medium of collage. The almost surreal spaces in which Kluz positions them are lit by an unearthly light, becoming dreamlike and theatrical.
The great houses depicted in this series of collages were constructed as expressions of wealth and power. Fire, war, loss of fortune and social change all played a part in their demise. Traces often remain in the landscape - the earthworks of a garden terrace, an avenue of trees leading to a blank space, the sunken pit of a filled-in cellar, a solitary pair of gate piers marking an entrance. Aside from fragmentary remains, their existence is preserved in folkloric memory and their tangible absence from the landscape they once occupied.
These traces and memories are catalysts for Kluz's work. These buildings which now only exist in the imagination, are rendered through the structural medium of collage. The almost surreal spaces in which Kluz positions them are lit by an unearthly light, becoming dreamlike and theatrical.
The 'Lost House Revisted' book (published by Merrell) is now available.