Beginning – Anfang
When preparing a painting I don’t ask myself how to begin. To pose the question presupposes some sort of inhibition. I must free myself of all rationalisations.
Details
Beyond Paradise – Jenseits des Paradieses – Axel Feuß
Figurative or abstract – Sebastian Heiner has yet to decide on an issue which has polarised art in the 20th century. Since the early 1990s, he has painted groups of highly abstract figures who communicate with one other with vehemence and sweeping gestures, figures from all imaginable social layers, in periods ranging from mythological times to the present, and from indeterminate regions of the world.
Details
Cat – Katze
I push aside the heavy, brown curtains. The glare of daylight blinds me. The air conditioner whirs loudly. I look at the block of flats opposite. Some residents have strung their colourful laundry out to dry on rusty iron bars.
Details
Cicadas – Zikaden
Riding the orange bikes under the plane trees is enchanting! A constant singing, whirring, shimmering, accompanies me. Are the vibrant sounds of the cicadas trying to seduce me?
Details
City – Stadt
Houses collapsing. Towers winding up into the sky. People run without orientation on the streets. Where am I? Daylight blinds me. I stand at the exit of a metro station and look at intersections, bridges, underpasses and overpasses, I see streets swimming in a sea of houses and have to turn away.
Details
Colour – Farbe
Colours mix and gather on the canvas, celebrating a fabulous party! A deep black blotch forces me to stop. Is not it wiser to act calmly, without agitation?
Details
Dance with me – Preface – Audrey Hörmann
What happens when we look at a painting and then try to remember that first encounter years later? Are we not surprised at how our recollections of our approach to the image and our interpretation of it have changed over the years?
Details
David Riedel – Stopping at the right moment
On one of my visits to Sebastian Heiner’s studio in the summer of 2015, I asked the artist at what point he was satisfied with a painting. When he had stopped “at the right moment”, he replied. Not prepared for a more specific response, I wondered, however, what that “right moment” meant. I came upon a more detailed answer in an interview with the artist, printed in an exhibition catalogue from 2001: “I consider a painting finished when I find inner peace; when form and colour have reached a balance, opposites have come together to form a unity and have created a composition.”
Details
Der Herforder Kunstverein zeigt großformatige Ölbilder von Sebastian Heiner – Action Painting mit der Fliegenklatsche.
Herford (WB). Zwei Hände voll Ölfarbe klatscht Sebastian Heiner auf die Leinwand. Er nimmt den Strohbesen, den Spachtel, den Pinsel, verwirbelt, mischt, verkratzt die zähe Masse. Das Ergebnis dieser Atelier-Performance zeigt der Herforder Kunstverein ab Samstag im Pöppelmann-Haus. Im Haus riecht es nach Öl. »Manche Bilder sind gerade erst getrocknet«, sagt Sebastian Heiner.
Details
Earth – Erde
I lie buried underground, dreaming repeatedly, I can’t move, breathing is hard. Deeply fatigued, imprisoned in a half sleep, my body lifeless, eyelids drooping, as if I were submerging into the dark earth and dissolving into tiny grains of sand.
Details