Everybody Dance Now!

Oil/acrylic on canvas, stretched onto an aluminium stretcher frame

Painted with a brush. In the initial stage, the canvas is stretched onto a wooden stretcher to provide the necessary counter-pressure during the painting process, which is required for working with fine adhesive edges and colour gradients. The work is subsequently re-stretched onto a high-quality aluminium frame to simplify handling and hanging.

The underlying approach behind the painting ‘:’

“Everybody Dance Now!” is a work from the “Tuning” series, which I have been developing since 2018 and in which a continuous, gradual process of de-representation takes place, initially removing all formally distinctive elements from the pictorial space. It is about painting. About painting, colours and light for their own sake. Whilst I originally came from a very formal, raw, representational and even narrative way of working – one that practically shouted out its messages in an almost adolescent manner and, at the same time, contained a great deal of chance – I now strive, through extensive reduction in colour and form, towards an absolute, elementary aesthetic experience which, in the rigour of its clear forms and colours, excludes chance – at least seemingly. 

On the one hand, the composition of colour and form is about creating a technoid, precise impression. A work that, viewed from a certain distance, can appear almost digitally installed in the space, whilst up close it in no way denies its artisanal origins as a painting created with brush and oil paint.

The creative process itself involves various iterative steps and moments of chance. If the initial idea is a rough ‘colour sound’, I also deliberately use intuitive or spontaneous colour compositions by combining, in my studio – which, during the working process, consists of a sometimes very great chaos surrounding the painting, in contrast to the work itself — I combine colours from countless paint tins and palettes that are still in a paintable state. In this way, I create questions on the canvas during the painting process, which I then combine with carefully selected areas of colour and colour gradients.

This often requires further, diverse and deliberate modifications until a work finally meets my expectations. 

But why all this? 

Ultimately, every painting is the current culmination of a long process of development. In some way, every painting embodies the journey that led to it, the 30 years of painting that preceded it, as well as my self-awareness – in the sense of being conscious of myself, as an artist, as a human being, within the context of my artistic contemporaries and the world at large. For me, painting a finely elaborated colour gradient holds a contemplative element that gives me a strange sense of calm; I can repeat this process for hours and days on end, granting my mind a temporary escape from the fast-paced (digital) stream of images and events that surrounds me every day. 

In doing so, I filter the final colour combinations not only through the aforementioned element of chance – ‘paints that haven’t yet dried in chaotic arrangements within paint boxes’ – but also from my everyday observations and the themes that occupy my mind.

Digital colour selection scales, two-tone paint finishes on tuned sports cars, sunsets, heavy industry, space and reflections in coffee can all find their way into the colour compositions.

One could certainly describe my approach to painting as a romantic one cloaked in logic. The indirect experience and perception of the forces of nature are reduced to colour gradients reminiscent of natural phenomena, yet which already bear the mark of human influence. Colours that evoke chemical transformation processes. Sunsets that may contain smoke, fire and toxicity in the atmosphere, yet which, within their visual world, are at first simply ‘just beautiful’.

As is often the case in my work, the title was inspired by pop-cultural influences. In this instance: ‘Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)’ by C+C Music Factory from 1990

A 36-year-old track with that absolutely iconic opening line, paired with the choppy first six guitar chords. A sound that finds its counterpart in the image.

But of course, there’s always the danger of being led astray by slavishly following the title. Perception and thought must always remain open and fluid.

Shipping:

The artwork is shipped stretched onto an aluminium stretcher frame – including a certificate of authenticity and a signature on the reverse