If yesterday were tomorrow today would be Sunday
Juergen Trautwein presents his seventh exhibition with 60SIX, "If Yesterday were Tomorrow, Today would be Sunday."
In this series, old newsprint collages from the mid 90’s live under acrylic paint. The artist used mainly San Francisco Chronicle & Examiner Sunday papers using a wheat flour based gluing process in multiple layers revealing bends, wrinkles, folds and resulting in unexpected refractions. The agitated surfaces become rich and nuanced while unlabored. The creases and lines and pools of paint are reminiscent of his set of works from the Topography series as well as earlier work on antique linen where minimal fields are interrupted by paint sticking to folds and creases.
The artist says of his new series, "YesterMorrow reflects on the idea of re-thinking, re-evaluation, re-painting, re-creation, re-cycling and re-definition." The paintings are, he says, “silent reminders of erased content, voids of no incident.”
Trautwein’s paintings often feel like objects that have undergone a reaction. The materials are fully present and embodied in the object. The artist’s title "If Yesterday were Tomorrow Today would be Sunday," illustrates his zen approach. The logic is absent, and we are left only with the present moment and the object and our experience of it.
