Evolution: About my paintings

After some musically motivated series such as the frightening, deep-blue "nocturnal landscapes" (oil and mixed techniques, mostly destroyed), the period since 1990 yields paintings which are almost exclusively concerned with single figures in cool interiors. These are often polyptychs, composed of several panels in different sizes, such as: "The silence" (oil, 1991, mostly destroyed) and "Expectation" (oil, 1991-92, mostly destroyed), and some scenes of stairs.

The exploration of the lost individual, his body and his environment is also realized by using three-dimensional objects (sculptures in clay, plaster of Paris, wood, stone, as well as metal-installations), which are increasingly present in the work. Painting- and sculpture-groups, for example "exhausted body" and "The air between humans" are created during this period.

Worked on concepts for rooms and interiors with architects, studies of personalities; worked in offices of interior-architects between 1993 and 1995

From 1993 onwards, work is restricted exclusively to the human figure and is intended to depict an inventory of the human situation. Work-series such as "Figure in a room" (oil) and "Standing figure behind a chair" (oil, 1993), as well as "Insufficient company" (oil, 1993) come out of this period. The mirror-motif is also introduced during this period.

The groups "Pandora", "Couple"and "Grace and lie" (paintings and monochrome colored sculptures) are followed by withdrawal from sculpture and also, in 1995, from architecture. Formal asceticism reaches a first summit with "Studies for a female torso" (1993-94).

Paintings in 1994: "Man in blue suit" (oil), "Figure sitting at a table" (oil) and "Man on the stairs" (oil) mark an important phase. A stay in Vienna (Austria) during this same year yields portraits and self-portraits such as "Me, Now" (oil) and "Rage and desperation" (oil), as well as a series of pictures using models, which includes "Blue nude in front of an empty mirror" (oil).

Interior architecture and installation-advising, as well as an employment for a few months in the light- and textiles department of a furniture and interior decorating shop result in the use of less colors and a stronger emphasis on the material.

Between late summer of 1994 and the beginning of 1995, there is work on an important cycle: "Sleep, Dream, Dead" (oil and mixed techniques on different textile supports). This cycle gathers all the various aspects of work done up to this point.

During the first months after moving to France, a number of " Night-Studies" and some small series in pastel like "The unloved lover" (pastels), as well as some portraits of prostitutes of Pigalle, like "Women in a room" (pastels), are executed. Subsequently, numerous nocturnal, anonymous portraits are brought together under the title: "Portrait, Night, Pigalle" (pastels, various techniques).

After moving from the Parisian red-light-quarter Pigalle to the Père Lachaise-district, the cycle "Bones" (pastels and mixed techniques) and the group "Nocturnal female visitors" (pastels) are created. This cycle is related to "Schlaf, Traum, Tod."

The first paintings of the group "Woman climbing a hammock" (pastels) are followed by the series "Three parisians" (pastels) which are almost exclusively in earthen colors. Then, the complex triptych "The odour of the women" (pastel, 3x74x50 cm, [framed: 3x100x70 cm], 1995) is executed during the summer months of 1995

Restriction of color and form. There is a predominance of blue. Paintings like "The october-dance" (oil on paper) and "Muriel on the big/great Louis" (pastel) set the tone for a broad cycle which is underway at this moment, ("Double-Portraits").

In fall of 1995, the following works appear: "Man standing in a room" (oil), "Decaying person" (oil). The analytical portraits of the series "portrayal-compulsion for visitors" (different techniques) includes three paintings about daily folly: "Girl sitting on a toilet" (oil), "Woman sitting at a table; Insomnia" (oil) and also "Figure with blinds" (oil on wood) about desperate voyorism. There is an intensity in the surface-structuration and a more resolute use of materials.

At the end of the year 1995, work on the voluminous cycle of the "Doubble-Portraits" begins. This cycle is composed of paintings of different sizes (between 70x46 cm and 135x100 cm) and in the following techniques: oil on canvas, on cotton or on wood-panels, oil on canvas or cotton set on wood-panels, as well as pastels on paper, framed in the format 100x70 cm under reflecting glass.

The work of the last years finds its expression in the "Double-Portraits". For the first time there is a successful transition in a coherent and compact form of the musically proportioned painting concepts spread out over a cycle.

This is followed by pictures like "The salt-bath" (oil, 83x67cm), the political painting "The Balkan and the big Lakes" (oil, 3x24x18cm / 1x120x76cm / 3x24x18cm) or homage to the composer Alban Berg: "That's what remains of Lulu" (oil, 112x76cm) and some polyptychs composed of seven elements of small size "You who are living at the end of the twentieth century" (oil and pastel on paper glued on card-board or wood, 7x24x18 cm).

Nearly two years after finishing the cycle "Double-Portraits", work starts on a smaller series, using photographic details of couples making love: the cycle "Room of Joy (The erotic body)" (oil).

Work then moves on to a more important project, the cycle "Human relations" (oil).

Work on the photographic series "Sédiments" and on the series of paintings "Sedimentary Images" is executed during the summer of 1998. These works deal with questions of superimposition and stratification that are encountered in archeological digs. From July of 1998 to autumn of 2000, preparations for the polyptychs "Notions"(7x180x27 cm) are carried out.

The series "Ritual", dealing with very ancien aspects of the everyday life of the urban man, develops as early as autumn of 1999 and is completed in the summer of 2000. These works are followed by the series "Empty angels" and "Error, pride".

Concepts are conceived for works which preclude an instantaneous perception of the work of art, such as music, films, images broken up into polyptychs, concepts of editing for works with areas missing, hidden or invisible. Out of this kind of exploration comes a first experience with film, the video "Urban silence".

After moving to a new more comfortable space on the Parisian hill of Ménilmontant as early as the beginning of the year 2000, work begins on the series "Inventory of fixtures" and on the waste cyclical work "Fragments" which breaks up exclusively into polyptychs of a very thin, tall (90x30 cm or 180x27 cm) format. At the same time, work begins on the photographic series "Lacking objects".

Work on the series "Slow torso" (polyptychs 2x177x28 cm) and "K" (polyptychs 3x30x90cm) begins during the summer of 2001

Author: Tristan Rain 1998, completed 2002

Translation: Mary E. Kissam, New York

Copyright: Tristan Rain, 2002