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Today the Richard Wright’s ceiling pieces in two rooms next to The Night Watch in the new Rijksmuseum were shown to the press.

Over the course of two months Richard Wright, winner of the Turner Prize in 2009, covered two ceilings of the Rijksmuseum with 47.000 black hand-painted stars. The two 9x9m ceilings flank the room where the Night Watch will soon be on view. He accomplished the work lying on his back, tracing charcoal outlines; a working method proudly compared with Michelangelo’s ways in the Sistine Chapel by Wim Pijbes, director of the Rijkmuseum.

Wright’s design was inspired by a 1885 decorative star pattern used by the original Rijksmuseum architect Pierre Cuypers. The optic illusion of depth and arches in the flat surface refers to the architectural structure of the building. Wright: ‘The work should be part of the structure of the building, but it also needed to add something new.’ ‘Having lived in Amsterdam, I knew the building well, and it has changed a lot since. When I saw the building being stripped away some six years ago, I knew the art work had to be part of that flow.’

When asked about the relation of his work to the Night Watch, he modestly replies that he identifies with Cuypers’ mode of thinking that the building was made in service of the art works. Apart from his working method, Wright argues his relation to the old masters to lie in his use of optic illusion also seen in perspective drawing.

The work is the seventh of a series of eight contemporary art commissions by the Rijksmuseum, selected by Theo Tegelaers, accompanying the renovation of the Rijksmuseum. Unlike Wright’s previous work in Tate Britain (2009) and elsewhere, the ceiling paintings in the Rijksmuseum are permanent. They will be accessible to the public when the museum opens on April 13, 2013.