Old Town Gallery

The international guest studios operated by the non-profit private foundation of the artist city Gmünd in the Altstadtgalerie are available to artists from around the world for a multi-week residency and are open to the art-interested public.

In total, six artists have been invited by the cultural initiative this year for a multi-week residency in the Altstadtgalerie in Gmünd: ROSEMARIE PÉLOQUIN (CA), LAU MAN PAN (NL), MAURICE DE ROOIJ (NL), MARIA SANTI (AR), SIGMUND HUTTER (AT), FRANCISCO VALENÇA VAZ (BR).

2025:

Lau Man Pan - Painting & Mixed Media
In his work, Lau uses various media and processes. Painting is the artist's strongest weapon to rebel against forgetting: the idea of emotional memories comes to the fore. "The human" is his main subject, which he constantly seeks to explore and reveal.
In recent years, Lau has been working on a painting series that reflects how historical memories and experiences have shaped his perspective as both an artist and a human being. He constantly tries to illuminate the many factors that create identities and give places a sense of being. The relationships between him and his subject are important in that fellow human beings and environments mirror him.
In this residency project, Lau will explore where the natural world intersects with cultural identity and how these themes can be implemented in immersive and thought-provoking artistic works. He aims to engage with the local natural environment and draw inspiration from it in his work. By combining his fascination with human experience with the exploration of the natural world, he creates works that address the many ways in which our identities, our self-understanding, and the world around us are formed.
Lau Man Pan (born 1989 in Hong Kong) is a visual artist based in the Netherlands. In 2012, he graduated with a Bachelor in Fine Arts from Hong Kong Baptist University, and in 2022, he earned his Master's in Painting from the Frank Mohr Institute in Groningen. During his studies and afterwards, he received scholarships and awards, including the ARTabi2023 International Contemporary Art Award. His works have been exhibited in Germany, Spain, Sweden, Romania, Hong Kong, Japan, and the Netherlands.
The exhibition of Lau Man Pan is on view from May 1 to June 30, 2025, daily from 10 AM to 1 PM and 3 PM to 6 PM.

Rosemarie Peloquin - Textile Portraits
Rosemarie Péloquin primarily works with wool. The material is light and soft, yet becomes strong and durable in the processing. The repetitive process of needle felting, which intertwines the wool fibers, reflects endurance, close connections, and strength. The size and material make her figures both accessible and vulnerable. Adding wood, bark, and found objects to some of the works evokes connections to the earth and living memories.
In her felt works, the artist utilizes the moldability and texture of wool to create figures that linger in thought. With felting needles, she shapes portraits that represent more of a character than a physical person, fragile moments meant to evoke memories. The artwork comes alive through our individual experiences. Viewers are confronted with their own stories, memories, relationships, desires, and fears as they interpret the expression and their connection to it.
In Gmünd, the artist will be working on new pieces for her upcoming exhibition "Show of Hands II," which will include needle felting on reclaimed wool clothing. The relationship of individuals to wool and their stories about fabric, family, and work will be explored. It is planned to use pieces of wool clothing provided by locals. These encounters inspire the creative work while simultaneously breaking the isolation of being a rural artist.
The Canadian Rosemarie Péloquin studied Interior Design at the University of Manitoba. Since then, the artist has been teaching in Manitoba and Alberta, Canada, and has participated in numerous group exhibitions. Her solo exhibitions include “A Show of Hands” at Prairie Fusion 2023 and at the Killarney Heritage Home for the Arts.
Rosemarie Peloquin's exhibition will be on view from May 1 to June 30, 2025, daily from 10 AM to 1 PM and 3 PM to 6 PM.

Maria Santi - Painting
Maria Santi, an Argentine painter, is convinced that painting has an inner power that controls and guides her, and that every artwork is the crystallization of a moment.
The artistic practice of Maria Santi is based on painting and its language. She explores its materiality and its possible expansion through the development of various systems that shape series – each with its own processes and techniques. Her painting is a mental process, her main interest lies in answering the questions that the artworks pose: the intensity of color, vibrations between shapes, surfaces of image spaces, and the articulation of context and the bodies involved.
Residencies offer Santi an exciting new perspective in her artistic creation, as they allow her to immerse herself for a certain period in a different cultural context and community that differs from her usual life. They enrich and enliven her art anew, opening up new and unexpected meanings. In Gmünd, Santi particularly wants to get to know local crafts, communal practices, and rituals and discover what images emerge from these experiences.
Maria Santi (born 1970 in La Plata, Argentina) lives and works in La Plata near Buenos Aires. In 1995, she completed her studies in painting at the Faculty of Arts, UNLP in La Plata and another study in 2015 in media and technologies for image production at UNA, Buenos Aires. Residencies have taken her to China, Finland, and Berlin. Her artworks have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions.
The works of Maria Santi will be on display from July 1 to August 31, 2025, at the Altstadtgalerie.

Maurice de Rooij - Printmaking
Maurice de Rooij is a Dutch artist and printmaker from Utrecht, Netherlands. He works with the printmaking techniques of linocut and woodcut. In his work, de Rooij isolates elements from geology and architecture of mountainous regions. Houses and barns are detached from their original locations and placed on steep slopes, standing alone under the vast sky, overlooking valleys. Geological phenomena are present in the piece "Diepe Tijd" (Deep Time), a woodcut depicting a limestone cave. Layers of rock are stacked upon one another, revealing a long and distant geological history. Writing and printing go hand in hand in his artistic process. Written texts inspire his prints and vice versa.
His working process allows de Rooij to explore both the characteristics of place and time in the mountains as well as the significance of mountain regions in his own life. His deep sense of appreciation and concern for our natural environments is palpable, and these themes become an increasingly important part of his artistic research.
During his residency in Gmünd, de Rooij will work with the following concepts: The geographical location; the geographical features of Gmünd and its relationship to the neighboring valleys. And the local architecture; the typology, form, and symbolic significance of architecture in Gmünd and surrounding villages. The artist aims to approach these two subjects with sustainable working methods.
The works of Maurice de Rooij will be on display from July 1 to August 31, 2025, at the Altstadtgalerie.

Sigmund Hutter - Visual Arts
The starting point for Sigmund Hutter's artistic work is painting and storytelling. Since 2022, he has been creating collages from packaging materials of candies, snacks, and other plastic-wrapped products by adding epoxy resin. Thematically, Hutter's work deals with many subjects from real life as well as questions and issues in society.
In his working process, Hutter uses an iron, through whose heat cutouts from packaging materials are partially distorted and melted into abstract compositions. This results in images at times, while at other times they are more sculptural objects. Epoxy resin casts and coatings are also applied. Through the transparent, highly glossy layers, the collages are both preserved and the colors and surfaces are enhanced. The brand's 'mascots' often serve as protagonists; they are rearranged in art-historically inspired scenes, still lifes, or entirely original motifs. Part of the works consists of abstract pieces that form compositions with shapes, colors, and cutouts.
In Gmünd, Hutter looks forward to presenting his work to a broader audience and engaging in dialogue with people interested in contemporary art and social issues. His works are the result of an intensive engagement with themes of consumption, sin, identity, and images from art history and pop culture. By combining and appropriating colorful designs and characters from plastic packaging, Hutter has developed his own technique that captures both the aesthetics of abundance and the fragility of our modern existence. This makes his work so accessible to viewers: Many people have a personal connection to the products whose mascots and designs they may have known since childhood.
Sigmund Hutter (born in 1996 in Vienna) completed his diploma in 2024 at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he attended the graphic and art class with Prof. Mag. Christian Schwarzwald. Commissioned works included graphic design for WIENWOCHE 23 as well as a sculpture at the German Embassy in Vienna.
The works of Sigmund Hutter will be on display from September 1 to October 31, 2025, at the Altstadtgalerie.

Francisco Valenca Vaz - Sculpture & Installation
The artist Francisco Valença Vaz, born in Brazil and living in Vienna, engages with a world between commodity, industry, and relativization.
Valença Vaz's artistic language focuses on the interfaces between the human body and its dematerialization. With an interdisciplinary approach to exploring narratives and images, his works investigate post-human conditions in the realm of commercial aesthetics. In contrast to the banality of daily life, artworks become relics that one wishes to believe in and hope for. In this desperate environment, the works can raise the question of which desires of modernity remain in a world that can only smell of gasoline and freshly unpacked iPhones. His artistic approach is always very site-specific and closely related to the individuals he collaborates with. For instance, his working route in Vienna has been a central theme of his artistic practice, referencing subway stations and other objects related to movement and physicality.
“Specifically regarding Gmünd, I am interested in the search for forms that reference the Middle Ages and are now found fragmented on the streets. I hope to create a kind of tension between old and new 'Vanitas' symbols or objects that can establish a connection between the present and a possible future through their meaning and future perspectives. The mobility and availability of transport fascinates me as they can explain the structure and form of a city and relate to time, movement, and hope. At the same time, I look forward to being a creator and worker in an artists' city to expand possible metaphorical moments on site and thus leave a lasting contribution.”
Francisco Valença Vaz (born 1996 in Recife, Brazil) is currently studying in Vienna. Since 2022, he has been part of the Master's program in Critical Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In 2022, he participated in the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg with the artist Flaka Haliti. From 2016 to 2021, he completed a master's degree and a diploma in Fine Arts under the guidance of Prof. Stephan Baumkötter at the University of the Arts Bremen. From 2020 to 2023, he received a scholarship from the Janusz Korczak Foundation Bremen. His works can be found in the collection of the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation Bremen.
The works of Francisco Valenca Vaz will be on display from September 1 to October 31, 2025, at the Altstadtgalerie.

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