Video: Abstract and grotesque paintings by Christian van Minnen
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
His paintings show characters whose outlines are very reminiscent of human figures, but all their elements - facial features, organs, clothes - are depicted using vegetables, fruits, flowers and other gifts of nature. The audience cannot figure out what is more in these works - beauty or ugliness, and at the same time eagerly study every detail of them. And he just creates, calling his paintings "the totality of everything that he is." Welcome to the world of American artist Christian Van Minnen.
Christian van Minnen is often referred to as the modern Giuseppe Arcimboldo (an Italian painter of the 16th century, in whose work they see an anticipation of surrealism). Indeed, both the one and the other "compose" their images from various elements. However, van Minnen's paintings look more abstract and grotesque in relation to themselves.
The basis of the series "The Keyhole Series" are the outlines of heroes, "borrowed" from famous historical portraits. Christian painted black silhouettes at his discretion - and they took on a completely different look, changing beyond recognition. The author never gives names to his works - he only numbers them. Thus, the title does not distract the viewer, does not confuse him, and nothing prevents the viewer from seeing his own meaning in the picture.
“Intention becomes a line, a line becomes a form, and a form becomes a content, - says the author of his work. - In my work, I suppress or encourage my own desire to turn personal stories into a series of visual information. Construction, destruction or reconstruction are symbiotic elements of the creative process that allow the image to oscillate between abstraction and representation, truth and illusion, personal and collective."
Christian van Minnen was born in Providence, Rhode Island, USA in 1980 and currently lives in Denver.
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