Is the fact that one comes from a region featuring unobstructed views and high skies a prerequisite for producing artistic work which invites descriptive terms such as ‘infinite’ and ‘now’? Günter Zachariasen, who was born in 1937 on the island of Sylt and has been living outside village development boundaries in North Frisia for decades, feels strongly connected to the land but doesn’t make the landscape the subject of his paintings. He breaks away from the representational. His oftentimes monumental works are painterly abstractions and a result of his exploration of the inner self. They are meditative colour spaces, with light playing a central role, and at the same time reflect vastness, openness and dissolution of boundaries. The application of paint is meticulous, the colouring gently tuned and carried by finely nuanced transitions, as if parts had the ability to not only collect light but also emit it. Where does the light come from? Does it penetrate thick fog? What distances did it travel before it reached our eyes? By way of the paintings, it instantly unfolds its impact. Each painting exudes calm and invites viewers to immerse themselves in a different world of thought. In this way, Zachariasen attributes a quality to painting that only it can unfold.
A catalogue in German and English is published in conjunction with the exhibition.
The exhibition is sponsored by:
Zachariasen-Mingotti Stiftung
