Search results for ""Author Erich Franz""

H is here, in the truest sense, the alpha and omega. Helmut Federle uses the first letter of his first name as a format-filling, artistic matrix on canvases measuring between forty and fifty centimetres. Since his early days as an artist in the late 1970s, he has created seventy variations of Liegendes H (Reclining H). The basic form of three lines and two squares enumerates the variations of expressions in painting. Their synopsis plays with figure and ground, forming an inventive collection of painterly techniques and the atmospheres they evoke. At the same time, the subtitles for the individual works seem to hint at the specific horizons of experience in their creation. They lend each work a poetic dimension, as one tries to imagine the artist’s world in the planes of colour. Thus, each picture represents Helmut and is, in its mysterious originality, a fascinating haiku.

Read more less

James Bishop can be called the only real painter of his generation still alive. He has developed a unique, poetic, and sensitive visual vocabulary, and describes himself as "an Abstract Expressionist of the quieter kind." Bishop likes to have his art speak for him, as he believes it has a language of its own: "Artists should neither be seen nor heard, with the exception of opera singers, of course." Although Bishop began his career with stronger colours on large canvases, which speak for themselves, he soon turned to earth tones, and then later grays in square, mostly unmodified, smaller formats. This tendency toward reduction has remained constant from the 1960s until just recently, especially with regard to individual works on paper. Bishop has been on a persistent search for an aesthetic balance among opposing factors: drawing and painting, opacity and transparence, two and three dimensions, open forms and simple tectonic elements. In his work he has succeeded in compellingly interweaving these opposing forces into a subtle tonal relationship, creating a miniature-like, intimate aura. Text in English and German.

Read more less

For more than twelve years, Zurich-based artist Felix Studinka has been observing a chestnut tree near his home and capturing his impressions almost daily in small-format charcoal drawings. Studinka's 'Chestnut Journal' represents an artist's study of our relationship to the world and offers insight into his distinct way of seeing and his approach to reality and to his environment. Published here for the first time is a selection of two hundred of Studinka's particularly expressive drawings from his 'Chestnut Journal'. Alongside the beautifully rendered drawings, the book offers essays by art historian Erich Franz, exploring Studinka's distinct creative process, and literature scholar Marco Baschera, who looks at the artist and his work from a philosophical perspective.

Read more less