Ulrike Pisch

Desires and experiences run like a red thread through the subjects of her works, accompanied by different forms of liveliness that are present in each of the individual paintings. Works such as "Porta Bohemica" and "Memory" were created, partly caused by her personal travel ventures and the associated lasting influences. You meet quietly and fleetingly on a rendezvous from a bygone era or in a modern-day blind date on site, on a journey, in a studio, a salon, on the street, in a crowd, an establishment, at a holy place, noticeably without a fixed one Exit to encounter and communication. Ulrike Pisch sometimes dispenses with the facial expressions shown: people without detailed recognizable facial features characterize the image concept. These paintings appear very mysterious and leave the viewer plenty of room for their own interpretations. The use of the repoussoir figure also finds its place in this context and shows the visitor a possible mirror of the artist's soul.

 

Alan Rankle

Like these material magpies, Rankle seizes fragments of a different kind from many places,not least art galleries, repositories of ourcollective memory. He shares Keifer’s concernwith recent history, but goes further back in time. Rankle explains his own magpie methodology through the technique of pentimenti. ‘The virtuosity which became possible inoil painting with the beginning of the Venetian school, around the time of Titian, developed through many artists who inspired me, where the modern use of oil painting methods, wet into wet, glazing and scumbling allows a free spontaneously evolving way of creating the work. ‘Related to these historical techniquesdecided to explore other ideas aboutthe nature of painting. The illusions of pentimenti, which I used on layered paintingsare coming from observations on the way some Renaissance and Baroque paintings become more transparent with age to revealthe under-painting and also any changes andalterations the artist made on the surface ofthe canvas. ‘The painting may be read as an evolving presence – significantly sometimes a figure previously painted out emerges from the shadows years later; often a portrait can be discerned to have several expressions. ‘I find this an intriguing technique. It’s a metaphor for the effects of time in landscapes and for allowing the mystery of places andpast events to be alluded to and of course it evokes such theatrical devices as sub-plots, undercurrents, hidden dealings and the implied ability to ‘re-write’ history as so many powers and shady characters have tried to do.’

(Judy Parkinson 2016)

 

Elena Tamburini

Elena Tamburini is a young very interesting dedicated painter. One who sinks into her painting in the studio every day. In her small oil works, she shows us our real world in drawings and she smashes her slogans around directly eye forward. And our heart speaks. No, there won’t be a comfortable hanging over the corner of our couch that would be suitable for the living room, because her pictures are slogan-texts and oil paintings, loaded up with the ugly themes of our time and lives, those of abuse, abandonment, a youth on the lookout, lovesickness, loneliness, flight and mental illness bring us into a frenzy. These soul pictures that touch us with their rough brush strokes, which are so subtly loaded with Old Master elements and fragments of color that they take us back to our own memories, which we can just about keep our distance from. Because their pictures touch us just enough, that we can go on without forgetting them.


Gerard Waskievitz

Gerard Waskievitz explores the hidden dimensions governing the aristic world, caught between superficial reality and the necessary counterweight creation of a new, parallel world, which we are wont to perceive as art. We do not look at the world, we look at a parallel world, a painted world, the world of art, with all its own laws and rules and regulations, processes and so forth. In his paintings, we walk through a wonderland world, which shows us that there are many, many hidden dimentions. We take a stroll down memory lane, but we are also, every now and then, touching a kind of foreboding, a sudden vision of hell or paradise, alarm bells ringing telling about changes to come.The paintings will thankfully indicate the paths to follow in order to arrive at understanding main station, at recognition, but things don’t come easy. Why should they? It’s not written in any book. And this contributes to the fascination of his art: painting as memory.

(Gerhard Charles Rump)