The diptychs "Transfer" show a construction that is suspended between two supports; twisted, shifted and the parts of which seem increasingly to move away from each other. The spatial understanding of the constructs is complex and confusing.

The compositions "Cube (Blue in Green)" (fall-winter 2019) seem very banal, as they show a cube in perspective. It is classically placed and in a classic picture format. Only the two areas of the "background", blue and green, are a somewhat strange... "atonal".
On closer inspection, questions arise: Is the perspective correcttly drawn? Why do non-spatial supports hold this object? Or does the cube emerge from a rectangle, perhaps a floor plan? What happens in the cube itself, because you can see internal structures that contradict the spatial logic of the cube? And why in the second composition is the cube on the edge as if part of the picture is missing?

The paintings "In-Between" (summer 2018 to autumn 2019) seem at first glance to be two-tone-compositions and in the tradition of geometric abstraction: blue ribbons on a silver-gray background. A closer look reveals a complex internal structure throughout the painting. The color bands on the edge seem to be just overlaps. But by what principles have been designed the structures of the gray central part of the image? Are these struts and references to picture elements that are not visible, are probably outside the picture board? One suspects that these are extremely de-centered compositions, zones from the edge of a work or the zone of a gap. The „object“ is refused to the viewer. The blue elements are fragments of the real object. The picture shows the zone between these objects.
What happens in this gap? The complex shapes that fill the actual picture do not seem to be meaningless. After what considerations were they arranged and conceived?
The themes of these works are, on the one hand, the extreme decentralization of the composition and, on the other hand, reflections on the characteristics of today's most widespread images: the digital images consisting of pixels. What remains here, where the "object" is missing, is only the structure of the picture ground. Pixel-structures are ordered, geometric, mathematical, strung, regular, sterile. In the film, the differences between the feelings triggered by the viewer of digital images and photo-chemical films are huge: the lively, animated, warm and tense analogue image is in opposition to a cold, sterile, lifeless digital image, which is a kind of hostile image location in which each of the 24 Movie-frames have the same identical structure.
The central zone of the paintings "In-Between" questions these digital, sterile, hostile-to-art-and-creativity-structures. Here, this zone becomes again a place where emotions and creativity are possible, where art and life can take place. Against all odds.

The paintings "Stapel" are asymmetrical, the compositions seem to have been moved out of the pictures center. They show a stack of geometric objects at the edge of the picture. On closer inspection inconsistencies in the spatial understanding fall on. The longer one looks at the pictures and sees objects, the more relationships among them, but also "visual traps" become visible. The pile seems to collapse somehow, break up, dissolve in the surface.
The larger half of the composition is monochrome blue, but on closer inspection, subtleties and structures can also be found here. And the influence of lighting always releases new aspects.

A kind of sculpture on a pedestal seems to dominate every image in this series. But there is a contradiction between the evidence of a perspective volume and the treatment of its internal structure, which seems to have forgotten that it is part of a spatial object. The object on its base floats in the room without reference. Only a weak bond tries, like the tendrils of a climbing plant, to stop. A wide black bar, bold and heavy, pushes the volumes back into the area.
The "Item of Value" is not a thing reproduced by an illustrative painting that clings to its functions of the past. The valuable object is not the exhibited object shown. That's just an illusion. The only reality is painting itself.

The paintings "Divergences" (october 2017 - march 2018) are a play with space and perspectives. The longer you look the more disturbing will appear those strange conceptions of space.

The composition "Anywhere Else" needs some time to contemplate. A form reminiscent of nothing known, but seems to pretend that it does not want to be abstract, dominates the balanced composition in a central place. It seems to hesitate between standing and hanging.
Also its environment is unclear: is it a room or a richly structured surface? The central “object” has multiple levels, a filigree construct of geometric interior shapes. However, these are partially overlapped by larger forms that may resemble architectural forms. The result is a play of perception between front and back, between central form and environment. Where are we? What does this painting show?

The works "Trouvailles" (Findings) were created between october and december 2017. These are reflections on concepts of archaeological excavations. The works seem like three steps or three different views of an excavation concept. On closer inspection, one discovers layers and structures.

The diptych "Unfold" was created during spring and early summer of 2017 in Paris. It shows an abstract construction - it could also be a folded cardboard box. Tensions arise from small details that mislead our logical understanding of space and perspective. Our perception changes.

The two medium-sized paintings were made in Paris in 2016 and show a vertically oriented composition, which, on closer examination, has a dynamic orientation to the diagonal. Twisted angles bend in the same direction. This results in a tension that tends to become more and more deformed. These works could be influenced by scientific models from the physics ...or merely sheet metal damage of a car-crash.

"Old and new houses" is a single medium-sized painting. The work consist of oil paint, industrial metal paints and quartz-sand. The attentive observer observes two compositions, each with a different orientation, two compositions that are superposed and connect in certain places. The concept comes from archeology and the compositions are floor plans. In the excavation of historical sites, the researcher sometimes finds such overlaps of house plans from different epochs. The orientation and the organization of a city has changed between two phases of settlement, although some marked points and points of intersection remain through several settlements. A city is constantly evolving and changing little by little - rarely large-scale, except for major disasters - to the changing needs.
The painting-composition of «Old and New Houses» also includes a change of perspective: the two floor plans are embedded in a modern facade form. The spatial understanding mutates from a horizontal one to a vertical one.

The further development of the paintings "Mercator" brought an increasing importance to the itineraries of explorers of the Arctic. Fragments of these routes have been selected and dominate the compositions of these works. Reflections of these path fragments also occur. Historic ship routes from Nansen, Long, Peary, Hill, Franklin, but also Cook, Bering, et others served as a template.

The "Mercator" series dates from 2014-2015 and was created in Paris.
These are bi-colored, conceptual paintings. Their relatively low contrast requires a careful and prolonged look. These paintings evolve according to lighting and the underlying layers become visible. A fragile metal construction, inclined and in slight imbalance dominates these compositions.
This work was influenced by cartography, measuring systems and concepts of space perception.

The Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection presented by the Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map projection for nautical purposes because of its ability to represent lines of constant course, known as rhumb lines or loxodromes, as straight segments which conserve the angles with the meridians. While the linear scale is equal in all directions around any point, thus preserving the angles and the shapes of small objects (which makes the projection conformal), the Mercator projection distorts the size and shape of large objects, as the scale increases from the Equator to the poles, where it becomes infinite.

“Convergence” are square small formats. An angular shape seems to be delivered to a bend. The orientation of the lines becomes dynamic, seems to shift. The starting point for these compositions was a children's drawings by the then two-year-old son of the artist.

The series "Wide Angles" is from 2010. These are small size-paintings on wood or canvas, mostly diptychs. The works are composed of very few colors: blue, silver and white. Work focuses on structures and light. Were used (in addition to oil paint with a textured surface) colors from the industry, from daily life in the city, next to metal paint, road marking paint, sand and reflecting additives. The pictures are dominated by simple forms in balanced, slightly unstable structures, and metal trays in a monochromatic field. The wealth is in what is almost not perceptible, only an attentive viewer will be able to benefit from it.

The large-sized panels "Transmission" were painted in 2009. It is a conceptual work with a reduced range and style. The gray color mass covered most of the scene and is structured and almost monochromatic. A metal-colored structure is embedded in it, finely balanced, but fragile and uncertain.

The paintings "Strange Behavior" were created between March and September 2009. These are cryptochromic paintings, what means paintings that colors seem not visible at the first sight: hidden, imperceptible. The paintings are dominated by large areas of a gray mass of paint applied with a textured surface. In it one will find inserted a sharp-edged metal-colored design. These paintings give the impression that the image was hidden behind a curtain or painted over. The color and the forms reveal themselves only after prolonged observation. The visiblity of colors and figures and all sorts of non-abstract bonds depend on the exposure to light. The image formats are unusually diverse and go from larger multi-part works to very small sizes.

The painting "Winner's Curse" (2010) examines our way of seeing. A composition that appears balanced shows a bright zone between two thick black streaks of uneven surface quality. These dark zones seem to threaten the central zone, increasingly to crush, absorb and conceal it. The richness of the material will gradually diminish, depending on the lighting ... artificial light, light of the different times of the day. As always with Tristan Rain, the painting seems to develop unrestrictedly and becomes a long-term visual experience.
The Painting is from 2010 but seems to reply as a conclusion to the séries "Caligari Stairs" from 2006.

The series "Dead End (Caligari Stairs)" was created in Paris between spring and May 2006. After the paintings "Probabilities", where the room almost completely vanished, it appears in these new paintings again. Perspective fragments of a staircase suggest a depth and stand against the flatness of the construction of the painting. The below and the above are questioned, the weight of the image's structure seems incomprehensible and contradictory. The flow of color is in competition with square knotted surfaces. Here and there a person seem to break through these constructions.

The series "About Beauty" was created in Paris between autumn 2004 and spring 2006. It is a pure painting on the brink of abstraction. A kind of knots dominate these works and penetrate angular designs in wide field-green color. Smooth flat surfaces and gray-black bars cover up and break through these structures. Monochromic colorfields cover up half of the painting. They seem monotone and as applied in an industrial way, it appears, however, on closer look, and depending on the quality of light : fine structures, accumulations, underpainting, scratches, abrasions...

The series "Berliner Fenster (Berlin Window)" was created in 2003 and 2004 in Berlin. Originally a project of stereoscopic photographs was planned, but the camera never arrived in the Berlin-studio. Since 2002 Tristan Rain studied the complex history and urbanism of some places in Berlin (like Alexanderplatz, Mehringplatz (formerly Belle Alliance Platz), Pariserplatz and Potsdamer Platz). The studies and preparatory work led to a series of diptychs of paintings, each very different in character, as the places themselves, and which have as subject the dialectic of this important urban, social, traffic and historical centers.

The painting series "Probabilities" was created in 2001-2004. Questions about aesthetics and perception dominate the conception of these works.