Ettelbruck Street Art
Welcome to Ettelbruck, the home of urban art in the rural North of Luxembourg. Trace the sea of concrete paintings lovingly brought to life by artists like Martine Koetz who help shape this immersive cultural experience.
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” Standing along the Alzette River in Ettelbruck’s municipal park, it almost feels like you’ve been transported into a bizarre, kafkaesque reality. Look at that man riding on a caterpillar! Equipped with a leather satchel, a fetching hat and a pair of binoculars, the brave explorer is sitting boldly astride the giant creepy-crawly. What about the woman opposite him perched on a huge grasshopper?
This topsy-turvey world sprung from the imagination of Ettelbruck-based artist Martine Koetz, whose house-sized mushrooms, humonguous frogs and gigantic snails evoke the colourful illustrations in children’s books or fairytales.
From New York to Luxembourg
Originating in 2017, the Ettelbrooklyn urban art project began as a tongue-in-cheek local joke contrasting the quiet Luxembourg town with the gritty energy of the New York borough. The city enthusiastically embraced this nickname as a permanent cultural strategy, commissioning vibrant, year-round graffiti murals to completely rivitalise the town’s visual identity.
It was this project that captivated our Ettelbruck-born artist. Born in 1981, she studied in Hamburg and Strasbourg before working on Berlin’s fashion scene for ten years. “It was all super cool and the pace was very fast.” But Martine was ready to return to her roots: Just before the coronavirus pandemic, she volunteered at an art studio in Capellen for people with cognitive impairments, where she now works.
But, as the giant caterpillar will testify, art is still an important part of her life. She paints as part of the ‘Twocans’ project. Speaking about Ettelbruck, she explains “it’s an honest, down-to-earth place that’s not all clean and perfect.”
You can discover the fruits of her passion with a guided tour around the area, taking you past the mural of a girl releasing a cloud from a bird’s cage, or the huge collection of works on the seven supports under the Deich Bridge. Lucas Thiltges from the Ettelbruck City Tourist Office (ECTO) leads two-hour tours which cover 25 of the 40 works of urban art currently on display.
