Natascha Schmitten, born 1984, has taken her own position in the field of contemporary abstraction, based on a sophisticated painting technique. Schmitten works with more or less dense glazes that partially overlap. Unusual and effective in the interplay with the glaze technique is the use of translucent nylon as support, on which transparent ink, oil and acrylic paints are worked with a sparing choice of colors. Light, transparency and movement determine her painting. Depending on the viewing angle, the picture impression changes noticeably. The stretcher on the wall shines through on the painted side and connects the real space with the illusionistic.

 

“Depending on the spatial position, the dynamized spatial experience changes. The images do not move around passive viewers* as in a virtual computer animation, but the viewers activate the dynamics of the images with their movement.”
Dr. Heidi Brunnschweiler

In the course of the painting process, different fractal areas and levels emerge in the pictorial space, partly created by the artist and partly from random moments that are suitable for her composition. Thus, despite the delicate, translucent sections in her paintings, a dramatic polyphony emerges, reminiscent of symphonic music.

 

The eye of the viewer is guided on the one hand, on the other hand it goes on a journey of discovery in the pictorial space. There is to be discovered, interwoven in the web of glazes and only as a silhouette, an arm, a shoulder, a part of an indeterminable human body. The integration of a concretely physical element is important to the artist, since the body establishes a connection to a being that exists more than digitally.

Text: Gallery