The graphic motif of a flattened matchbox recurs throughout Wachholz’ artistic corpus. For many years Wachholz has collected these objects, culled from hotel lobbies, petrol stations, restaurants and bars as physical mementos or talismans of other places, and times past. Wachholz’s oeuvre is thus steeped in the personal, yet in his response to the physical and contemporary world and resulting emphasis on the formal, Wachholz constructs a truly universal visual language. Drawing on the rich legacy of Pop, Wachholz elevates the everyday.
Wachholz was born in 1984 and studied at the Kunstakadamie Düsseldorf under Katharina Grosse and Marcel Odenbach. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions and galleries across Germany, Switzerland, France, South Africa and the US. In 2016 he was the recipient of the Atelierstipendium studio grant by Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne. Wachholz lives and works in Cologne.