Sunday, May 26, 2013

More than 100 Years Abstract Painting

Abstract painting started probably in 1910 when Kandinsky created his first non-figurative water color painting. So the way I painted in 2008/2009 hat an almost 100 year old tradition, this kind looking back on the Delaunys, Feininger and Klee. There is nothing really new about it, but as my husband likes a smaller version (postcard size) of this painting so much, I answered his request by creating this large acrylic painting. You can conclude on the size from the newspaper you see at the lower left corner. It will decorate our bedroom and hopefully not disturb our sleep with its outburst of rays and colors.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Stealing Other Artists' Tricks

Watercolor, 30x42 cm, approx. double letter size
Last week, my husband and I got on the train and visited Bremen, two hours from our home. In the Kunsthalle, a retrospective on the work of Wols is shown, a German artist who reached an age of only 38 and was a friend of the French surrealists. He lived in France and Spain, trying to emigrate to the USA on the run from Nazi prosecution. But he never got there. He survived the war and died from a food imposoning in 1951.
Funny: This exhibition inspired me although I did not like most of Wols' work. His older watercolor and pen drawings are no different from the things that all the people draw after smoking grass (no idea if he did). His later watercolors are extremely charming and remind of Paul Klee's work. His larger paintings are obscure and show a violent temper with the paint flung and splashed onto the canvas, they are carved with scratchings and big blobs of paint which must have taken ages to dry.


Detail of "A Friendly Little Flash"
I was very impressed by his watercolor techniques and tried them on this watercolor (above), my latest painting, double letter format. Title: "A Friendly Little Flash". I filled my rocks with petrified life this time.

Exhibition site