Architecture
Permanence and change
In my Architecture series, I engage with buildings as symbols of human culture. They stand for stability, order, and inspiration—while at the same time bearing the traces of change and decay.
I work with acrylics, rust, copper, gold, and textiles. For me, rust becomes a symbol of transience, but also of the unique aesthetic appeal that surfaces gain through the passage of time. In contrast, gold and copper reflect permanence, radiance, and the idealized side of architecture.
The result is works in which reality and ideal, permanence and transience come together. Architecture is not understood merely as a functional construction, but as a living expression of history, transformation, and beauty.
Architecture in transformation
This work presents an abstract skyline, defined by clear architectural forms and the vibrant textures of rust and patina. The interplay of acrylic paint with rust and copper lends the buildings depth and expressive power.
The skyline here becomes a symbol of urbanity: it stands for progress, stability, and cultural identity, while at the same time bearing the marks of transience and change. Golden and rust-colored layers create a field of tension between brilliance and decay, between reality and ideal.
The work invites viewers to discover beauty within transformation—architecture as a mirror of human culture and as a living expression of history and change.
Stille Architektur Nr. 3 /Silent architecture No. 3
Between golden facades, rust flows downward like memory.
It settles as a gentle patina across the silence of the walls, uniting radiance and transience in a single breath.
Here, the light of eternity shines—only to break against the soft decay of time.
100 x 100 cm | 2025
Acryl,rust on canvas
Industrieecho / Industry Echo
This work is not a requiem for industry, but a call: How do we want to build, live, and think in the future?
The answer lies in the mindful use of resources, in creative reuse, and in the courage to embrace positive change.
It is an echo of something still palpable, even though it seems long gone.
It opens a conceptual space between history and future, decay and possibility.
100 x 80 cm | 2025
Acrylic, rust on canvas
Stille Architektur Nr. 4 / Silent architecture No. 4
High-rise silhouettes rise before a patinated, rust-marked backdrop.
The combination of acrylic paint, salt structures, and real rust gives the surface depth and vitality.
The work reflects the contrast between urban brilliance and the inescapable traces of time.
100 x 80 cm | 2025
Acrylic, rust on canvas
Stille Architektur Nr. 5 / Silent architecture No. 5
High-rise silhouettes rise before a patinated, rust-marked backdrop.
The combination of acrylic paint, salt structures, and real rust gives the surface depth and vitality.
The work reflects the contrast between urban brilliance and the inescapable traces of time.
80 x 100 cm | 2025
Acrylic, rust on canvas
Urbane Rostlandschaft / Urban Rustscape
In my work Urban Rustscape, I used rust pigments, acrylic, iron oxide to generate real rust, and medical gauze.
Between geometric precision and organic decay, a cityscape of rust unfolds. The clear contours of the architecture merge with the unpredictable traces of oxidation—an emblem of the transience of urban spaces and the beauty concealed within their decay.
80 x 140 | 2025
Acrylic, rust on canvas
Rotterdam - Tor zur Welt / Rotterdam - Gate to the world
In my work, the traces of architecture and sea merge into one. Rust, salt, and paint form an urban landscape that speaks of the dignity of aging and the dynamics of change. The Cruise Terminal in Rotterdam—symbol of travel, encounter, and departure into new worlds—appears here as a rust-etched skyline.
The “New York” lettering of the hotel alludes to historic connections across the Atlantic, opening a field of tension between past and future, transience and hope.
80 x 100 cm | 2025
Acrylic, rust, patina on canvas
Stille Architektur Nr. 2 / Silent architecture No. 2
Golden high-rise silhouettes rise before a patinated, rust-marked backdrop.
The combination of acrylic paint, salt structures, and real rust gives the surface depth and vitality.
The work reflects the contrast between urban radiance and the inescapable traces of time.
140 x 70 cm | 2025
Acrylic, rust, patina on canvas
Café Rotterdam
In meinem Werk setze ich mich mit der modernen Architektur Rotterdams auseinander – besonders mit dem Café Rotterdam und dem markanten Cruise Terminal. Die klaren Linien, Fassaden und Strukturen dieser Bauwerke übersetze ich in abstrakte Formen. Rost und Patina dienen mir dabei nicht als Zeichen des Verfalls, sondern als künstlerisches Ausdrucksmittel, das Tiefe, Materialität und Lebendigkeit in die Komposition bringt. So entsteht ein Bild, das die prägnante Architektur Rotterdams in ihrer kraftvollen Gegenwärtigkeit würdigt und zugleich Raum für Erinnerung und Transformation öffnet.
100 x 120 cm | 2025
Acrylic, rust on canvas
Rotterdam - Over the water to the world
Die Rotterdamer Skyline mit der Erasmusbrücke steht im Mittelpunkt dieses Werkes. Die Brücke symbolisiert Verbindung und Aufbruch, zugleich erinnert sie an die Auswanderer, die von Rotterdam Richtung USA aufbrachen – zwischen Sehnsucht, Hoffnung und Realität.
Das Bild reflektiert nicht nur Geschichte, sondern auch Rotterdam heute: eine Stadt, die nach dem Krieg zu einem Zentrum moderner Architektur wurde. So verbindet das Werk Vergangenheit und Gegenwart – als poetisches Sinnbild für Wandel, Erinnerung und Zukunft.
80 x 120 cm | 2025
Acrylic, rust on canvas
Zuhause im Licht / Home in the light
In my work, architecture and emotion merge into a radiant harmony.
The forms of façades and towers dissolve in the light—they appear at once real and distant, solid and transient.
Rust and copper enter into a quiet dialogue:
rust symbolizes time, memory, and lived traces;
copper reflects warmth, love, and the beauty of light.*
90 x 120 cm | 2025
Acrylic, rust, sheet metal copper on canvas
Im Atem der Zeit / In the breath of time
Between rust and light, a quiet metaphor of transience unfolds.
The architecture emerges from the material and dissolves back into it—
like an echo fading into the mist.
Copper and patina become witnesses of time,
their surfaces telling of change, memory, and the delicate balance between radiance and decay.
The work invites the viewer to sense the moment
in which form becomes atmosphere—and transience becomes beauty.**
100 x 140 cm | 2025
Acrylic, rust, sheet metal copper on canvas
Am Rand der Wüste/ On the edge of the desert
At the edge of the desert, a landscape of transition unfolds.
Rust-covered architectural fragments stand like relics of former orders within an open, light-filled space. Between them, silence spreads— not an empty void, but a breathing in-between.
The materials speak of decay, time, and memory. Rust is not understood here as destruction, but as a process, a slow transformation. The architecture loses its function and remains as a trace— a fragment of a former presence.
90 x 120 cm | 2025
Acrylic, rust on canvas
Silent Architecture - In blue Space Part I
Architecture appears here not as a place, but as a condition. Condensed structures stand within an open blue space that functions less as sky and more as an atmospheric field of resonance.
Windows and façades become signs of memory rather than narrative details.
Without the use of rust, a quiet form of transience emerges through reduction, dissolution, and stillness.
120 x 120 cm | 2025
Acrylic on canvas
Gilded Core of Decay
“Gilded Core of Decay” unfolds a complex interplay of materiality, structure and symbolism.
The outer layers of rust reveal the organic unpredictability of decay, while embedded textiles and sculptural gold surfaces evoke the remnants of an architectural façade.
The work opens a glimpse into an inner layer—a golden core that appears like a residue of warmth, memory or spirit embedded within the material.
The composition oscillates between exposure and protection, between vulnerability and sublime radiance. In this tension, transience is not portrayed as loss but as a process that reveals what remains essential.
The work contains gold-colored pigments; no genuine gold leaf is used.
90 x 70 cm | 2022
Acrylic, medical gaze, rust on canvas
Structure of Memory
Structure of Memory” unites rust-toned earth colors, golden accents, and finely articulated textures into a quiet dialogue between materiality and time.
The ascending form evokes architectural layers in which decay and preservation appear simultaneously.
Rust, pigments, and ground merge into a surface that carries traces of past places and inner landscapes.
The work moves between calm and tension — a fragment of history that becomes newly legible in the light.
60 x 50 cm | 2024
Acrylic, medical gaze, rust on canvas
Fragments Beneath the Skin
Fragments Beneath the Skin is a painterly exploration of materiality, time and memory. The interplay of rust, gauze structures and layered pastes creates a texture that feels almost archaeological – as if the painting uncovers strata that have long been concealed.
The dark, organically flowing rust fields contrast with lighter, exposed areas that resemble islands emerging from the material. Fibres, cracks and delicate lines evoke geological cross-sections or the fragile layering of human skin.
Through controlled oxidation processes, the work navigates the tension between intention and chance. The surface appears alive, in constant transformation, carrying the traces of an internal erosion.
This piece invites viewers to perceive what lies beneath – the subtle, often overlooked fragments that form identity, memory and the history of materials. It is a work that reveals rather than depicts: the unspoken beneath the surface.
50 x 40 cm | 2024
Acrylic, medical gaze, rust on canvas
© 2025 Rhea Callen Alle Rechte vorbehalten