Isak W. Koch - ──╯Stairway to Nowhere╰──

Unique painting, very special and an absolute eye-catcher for fans of Urbex and lost places.
Perfect as a focal point for large rooms such as offices, doctors' offices, hospitals, galleries, and more.


“The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs.” - Vance Havner


╭──╯Stairway to Nowhere╰──╮

60cm x 40 cm / 23.6 x 15.7 in
Mixed media on canvas (stretcher frame)
Multimedia art (photography and painting)
Hand-signed and high-quality sealed
2018
Exhibition piece (2018,2024)

Includes signed certificate of authenticity.

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About the painting:

The painting “Stairway to Nowhere” captures a haunting scene of architectural decay. A once-grand staircase now lies broken and collapsed, its wooden beams scattered like bones across a ruined hallway. The walls are weathered with peeling layers of faded paint, their muted blues and ochres bleeding into one another in a ghostly wash. Light filters faintly through unseen windows, illuminating textures of erosion, mold, and charred remnants. An arched doorway to the right suggests former elegance, now overshadowed by abandonment and silence. The brushstrokes are rough, layered, almost sculptural—conveying the passage of time and the weight of neglect.

A Short Story:

The mansion had once been the pride of the town, its staircase a sweeping marvel where silk dresses trailed and polished boots echoed during glittering evenings. Generations had ascended its steps, carrying laughter, secrets, and sorrows.

But after the last family fled—rumors say in the dead of night—the house stood empty, save for whispers caught in its rafters. Storms came, years passed, and the stairway that had once led upward now sagged, broken, and jagged. It no longer led to ballrooms or bedrooms, but to splintered beams and darkness.

Local children called it the stairway to nowhere, daring each other to climb its remains, though none ever reached the top. Some swore they heard faint music as they stood at its base, a phantom waltz echoing from a vanished world. Others claimed the stair creaked under unseen footsteps when the moonlight touched it.

No one knows who—or what—still walks there. Only the stairway remains, pointing not upward, but backward, into memory and ruin.


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About the artist:

ISAK W. KOCH (born 1962); painter and photographer
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Isak Wilhelmus Koch (born June 8, 1962, in Vrede, South Africa) is a multi-talented, creative painter and photographer who has already achieved great popularity as an artist, not only in his home country, but also in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

Isak grew up as the son of a farming family in a rural area of South Africa, where his fascination and love for animals and nature developed. This fact is still strongly reflected in his paintings, drawings, and photographs today.

After school and graduating from high school (1980), he studied graphic design at the Technical University in Vanderbijlpark, Gauteng. Here he began to experiment with a wide range of styles and motifs, which he mastered over the course of his career. In addition to realism, these include surrealism, impressionism, abstract art, pencil drawings, scientific and digital illustrations, and (art) photography.

He finds his motifs in nature: in flora and fauna, as well as in landscape scenes, with a preference for abandoned places as a visual metaphor for transience. Man-made creations are returned to what is inherent in themselves—nature and time. Both represent the dissolution of existing structures, change.

HE PAINTS BECAUSE HE LOVES PAINTING, BECAUSE HE HOPES THAT THROUGH HIS WORK HE CAN BRING THE BEAUTY AND RHYTHM OF THE SEEMINGLY BANAL THINGS OF OUR WORLD CLOSER TO THE VIEWER, OR RATHER, LET THEM FEEL IT.

Numerous private and public exhibitions followed, including in South Africa and Namibia (1990-2014, among others in South African government buildings), Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Portugal, and Germany (including Heilbronn, Lörrach, Weil am Rhein, and Öhringen). Since 2015, Isak has been living and working in Schefflenz, near Mosbach (Baden).

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Find more artwork by Isak W. Koch here:

╰┈➤ Instagram: @Isak Koch Artist
╰┈➤ Facebook: @Isak Koch Artist

Commissions welcome! ツ