Letter Mosaic Painting

 

Every century has its own tragic moments in history.  For us today, the 20th century is probably the most important, because it is our instant heritage. We are currently in a time of transition. There is a lot of rhetoric in the air and talk about a crisis. This has both perceived and real effects – economic, social, and political. It is indicative of the insidious power of capitalism that it has affected so many areas of our daily experience.  In an attempt to criticize capitalism’s strong hold and to move beyond the apathy of the individual, there seems to be an increased desire for social renewal. The starting point of my work is the observation of human behavior at economic and socio-political downswings: the nature of hysteria, decadence, despair, lies and the infinite black-hole we are looking into as a frightening vision.

The focus of my interest is the use of clichés both in narration and painting. How can we fill clichés with life and emotions? I am interested in creating an atmosphere in which different elements metamorphose into their opposites: the safe to unsafe, the familiar to strange, beauty to beast and light to dark. In my work, I try to combine the personal with the impersonal, and to balance the specific and the generic, where everything is familiar but nothing is recognizable.

My recent paintings consist of three different layers. The first layer is made up of the vivid lines of hand-painted letters, which exist as a mosaic-structured image. The second layer is the sense of the letters as a coherent text.  The third layer is the painterly context of the previous two layers. The image-layer is the surface of the painting where subjective experience and the momentums of the impersonal, outside world are dissolved in the emptying of portrayal and narration, as well as into the colorful kaleidoscope of small letters. Since it often takes great efforts to identify the details of the objects depicted, my paintings provide space for the creative imagination of the viewer, thereby involving him/her in the creative process. During this peculiar interaction, the image-world of the creator is complemented and completed by images from the viewer’s own memories. The text-layer as a decontextualized emblem or expressive fragment of content goes beyond the surface. The text-fragments are never directly connected to a particular figure within the image, but rather there is a more blurred and more associative relation between text and image. Sometimes, certain repeated words become keywords or the title of the painting, and help in the recognition of individual connections. Instead of using mass media channels, these fragmented pieces of text are appropriated from more subjective and uncontrolled sources, such as blogs or thematic internet forums, where my fears about our world are communicated by other people`s words. The painterly context layer is created by a hand paint process. This visual structure can generate solid forms on several levels of expression, from the most sophisticated to the most radical ones.