Earth, Stone, Pigment
Helmut Dirnaichner – Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi
Exhibition from September 13th to October 26th, 2019
Opening: Friday, September 13th, 2019, 6 to 9 pm
Special opening times during OPEN ART 2019
Saturday / Sunday, September 14th/15th, from 11 am to 6 pm
Artist talk and catalog presentation: Saturday, October 19th, at 7 pm
Helmut Dirnaichner crushes, grinds and pulverizes earth, stones and minerals until a granulate is produced. This mineral substance is scooped into cellulose without a binding agent. It permeates the resulting fragile body of the painting and gives it varied surface structures. The grains cast shadows, reflect light, and lend depth. Different shades of color enter into correspondence with each other; fine reliefs emerge that tell stories about the materials used.
Alfonso Fratteggiani Bianchi reduces himself in his painterly work to the pure application of pigment. He rubs the pure pigment by hand without any binding agents into a sandstone, the "pietra serena", until the desired degree of saturation is achieved. The "powdery" character of the pure pigment and the resulting velvety surface allow the colors to be experienced completely unadulterated. So intense, in fact, that one believes the pigment is diffusing its own light.
With their approach, both artists occupy a unique position in contemporary monochrome art, which the exhibition "Earth, Stone, Pigment" impressively demonstrates to the viewer.
