die Arbeiter, 2022

In die Arbeiter (the workers) (2022) this game with different and apparently painterly traces continues. The picture, reproduced digitally, is a found image showing three workers plastering a wall. It is taken from the artist’s own waste paper pile, and displays a number of signs of its former use as a covering, which remain as part of the picture in its digital copy. In a second phase of the work, these random marks are then overpainted very precisely with a small brush, leading to a reproduction of the original structure that only deviates in tiny details but on first sight entails some confusion as to the difference between the copied and thepainted traces of paint on the image. The points of reference that can be ascertained here are manifold. On the one hand there is a connection between the plastering of the wall and also the wall red (2022 – 23), as well as the Dämmplatten (Insulation Boards) (2023). In their simple doubling, the traces of paintand their reproduction also open up a broad range of ideas, rooted somewhere deep in the painting of the twentieth century, such as in the proto-Pop of Robert Rauschenberg, and with further allusions and reminiscences of abstract art.

die Arbeiter, 2022
Digital print laminated on Dibond, painted
35 × 39 × 1.5 cm
Courtesy Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna