New Additions to Two Ongoing Series
I’ve been painting a lot lately, mainly working on a new series. Today, though, I would like to show two new works that belong to series I’ve been pursuing for a while.
Gestural Abstraction
A series that is particularly close to my heart is gestural expression. My progress depends very much on how regularly I practise calligraphy. After a longer break, I immediately feel its absence in the construction of a painting. In this work, I tried to push the limits of what I can currently do with colour. Daoism also plays a part in how I understand gestural abstraction.
Abstract Surrealism
Another series I’m fond of is abstract surrealism. I enjoy the challenge of combining abstract forms with recognisable ones, of giving a dreamlike vision something concrete.
Some progress in technique has made this more exciting. It also makes it harder to tell what I painted deliberately and what happened by chance. The closer I come to Daoist thinking, the less certain I am that these need to be separate questions.
It’s a series I’d like to follow for several years. The first work on this was: “Burning Down the Snow“, an earlier painting. Some works turn out better than others. That doesn’t trouble me, as long as I can see a way forward.
An Extra: A Video Conference with Gansu
I mentioned in my penultimate post that I had been invited to a video conference as a speaker. It was about a cultural project by Gansu Province. The whole thing was not very clear to me (and others) in advance, especially since I wasn’t asked to talk about any specific topic. Well: I was well prepared for the situation. Two pieces of advice from my dear friend, Ambassador Dr. Wolfgang Wolte, who has sadly passed away, helped me here: speak in short passages and have a clear central point. When working with an interpreter, only what they can convey reaches the listener.
Two or three sentences at a time give the interpreter room to translate properly. Everything else should grow from a concise central statement.
I was surprised by the number of participants here (no wonder, there was a fabulous buffet afterward), but also by the prominent cast among the Chinese interlocutors. But as so often most have tried to sell too much in too short a time. What was amazing, however, was the technical professionalism of the video conference. I expected the speakers to just sit in front of a video cam. Instead, it was an impressive multimedia staging.
The Interpreter
The lady in the photo above is Prof. Wang Jing, one of the translators of the Theodor Storm book of poems that I recently illustrated. The book was published in October 2022 by Sonata Book.
Incidentally, the above-mentioned picture “Burning down the Snow” can also be found in the said book.
What makes me particularly happy is that my rather modern and often dynamic and powerful pictures harmonize so well with nineteenth-century poems or that the poems bring out the lyrical aspect of my work. Though my “illustrations” are independent works, some of them capture the core message of the poem quite well. For example:
From these leaves rises the scent of violets,
Which grew back home upon our heath,
Year in and year out, of which no one knew,
And later I could no longer find them.
Related articles: New Works in Abstract Surrealism · Gestural Landscape Art · Burning Down the Snow
Explore Art & Writing
Art Portfolio → Featured Artworks → Arts & Philosophy Journal → All Articles
Explore Asian Art Essays for writing on Chinese painting, calligraphy, aesthetics and art history.
Available Artworks
Original works are available on FriedrichZettl.com and Saatchi Art
Leave a Reply