Images in Motion
Page 2/3
The two-dimensionality of the paper is extended into another dimension by the evocation of a landscape. The surface seems to be vibrating space in motion. The drawings do not depict landscapes. However, the lineature and the painterly qualities make “landscapes” conceivable. Simultaneously, the coexistence of line and color becomes clearly separated within each folio, but they shift into one another visually. And this visual overlapping first produces a third effect – the concept of a landscape made through a collage of smut and graphite.
Therefore, it is not a question of an image of a landscape, but rather the representation of an idea of a “landscape,” which is to say an image that the draftswoman has made of a “landscape” not from a specific, regional, natural area, but of a general landscape in relation to the genre.
There are neither houses nor people, but deserts and savannas that become blurred with the sea and into mirages. At the same time we see a manifestation made of lines and color.
Such a representation of an idea of “landscape” is only possible through fundamental artistic reflection about the genre and about its relationship to reality.
Therefore, contemplation about images, drawing and painting can be read into the works similarly to how the concept of a landscape is introduced. Bettina Rave subjects the genre to her reflections.
What is fascinating is the balance of disorder and construction, banality and evocative strength. It is scarcely anything and it is everything. The images of landscapes are freed from the depiction of landscapes. They are aesthetic objects without an illustrative function.
We do not immediately have an image in view. It gives priority to the act of seeing and postpones an inclination toward object-related recognition. The longer the delay, the greater the intensity of the effect of the atmosphere produced. Color correspondences and graphic relationships work contrary to the idea of landscape.
If we read the lines, their characteristic style, their hardness and softness and their interrelationships allow themselves to be specified, but the entity remains abstract, like the white noise on television that is reminiscent of snow flurries – one has nothing to do with the other, but it is an irrefutable analogy nevertheless.
The paper becomes a topos in a double sense. As the sphere of activity, the drawings provide evidence of their own production, while going beyond this to evoke the images.
Something is insinuated without being said. Something is presented for view without being depicted.
Rave’s images are conceptions. They are formed through the perceptions of the viewers, who allow themselves to experience the textures. What appears is nothing without them. And when they discuss what they have seen, viewers have to bring together “the seen” with their own suppositions and presumptions.
Sie können nicht umhin, ihre eigene Wahrnehmung ins Spiel zu bringen, müssen von Wirkungen sprechen, von Illusion und Schein, die beim Sehen doch wirklich waren. Die Gewissheit (“so ist es”) weicht einer Vergewisserung dessen, was man zu sehen glaubte (“so wirkt es auf mich”).
Images in Motion
Page 2/3
The two-dimensionality of the paper is extended into another dimension by the evocation of a landscape. The surface seems to be vibrating space in motion. The drawings do not depict landscapes. However, the lineature and the painterly qualities make “landscapes” conceivable. Simultaneously, the coexistence of line and color becomes clearly separated within each folio, but they shift into one another visually. And this visual overlapping first produces a third effect – the concept of a landscape made through a collage of smut and graphite.
Therefore, it is not a question of an image of a landscape, but rather the representation of an idea of a “landscape,” which is to say an image that the draftswoman has made of a “landscape” not from a specific, regional, natural area, but of a general landscape in relation to the genre.
There are neither houses nor people, but deserts and savannas that become blurred with the sea and into mirages. At the same time we see a manifestation made of lines and color.
Such a representation of an idea of “landscape” is only possible through fundamental artistic reflection about the genre and about its relationship to reality.
Therefore, contemplation about images, drawing and painting can be read into the works similarly to how the concept of a landscape is introduced. Bettina Rave subjects the genre to her reflections.
What is fascinating is the balance of disorder and construction, banality and evocative strength. It is scarcely anything and it is everything. The images of landscapes are freed from the depiction of landscapes. They are aesthetic objects without an illustrative function.
We do not immediately have an image in view. It gives priority to the act of seeing and postpones an inclination toward object-related recognition. The longer the delay, the greater the intensity of the effect of the atmosphere produced. Color correspondences and graphic relationships work contrary to the idea of landscape.
If we read the lines, their characteristic style, their hardness and softness and their interrelationships allow themselves to be specified, but the entity remains abstract, like the white noise on television that is reminiscent of snow flurries – one has nothing to do with the other, but it is an irrefutable analogy nevertheless.
The paper becomes a topos in a double sense. As the sphere of activity, the drawings provide evidence of their own production, while going beyond this to evoke the images.
Something is insinuated without being said. Something is presented for view without being depicted.
Rave’s images are conceptions. They are formed through the perceptions of the viewers, who allow themselves to experience the textures. What appears is nothing without them. And when they discuss what they have seen, viewers have to bring together “the seen” with their own suppositions and presumptions.
Sie können nicht umhin, ihre eigene Wahrnehmung ins Spiel zu bringen, müssen von Wirkungen sprechen, von Illusion und Schein, die beim Sehen doch wirklich waren. Die Gewissheit (“so ist es”) weicht einer Vergewisserung dessen, was man zu sehen glaubte (“so wirkt es auf mich”).