CELEBRATION OF LIGHTNESS Artwork

PROLOGUE ”In art there is the chance to bring faith, hope and sense into our world without following the traditional religious approaches. Art brings people consistently into contact with the being. It is a source of inspiration for the look inwards - for musing and for reflecting on one's own perceptions and experiences. Art invigorates and enriches without demanding.“ (Jason Engelbart 2018) ARTIST STATEMENT The source of my group of works THE JOY OF BEING (2016 to today) can be found in the opulent works of Baroque painting from Giovanni Battista Tiepolo to Antoine Watteau to Jean-Honoré Fragonard. I am mainly fascinated by the playful use of light and colour, the flowing forms and the special expression of light and dark contrasts. On an emotional level, I am particularly touched by the religious and mythological scenes of the ceiling and wall paintings of this epoch of art. Driven by my search for the perfect moment, the moment of perfect love, the divine, I trace these values especially in the works of sacred baroque painting. Using my characteristic digital painting technique, developed over the years, I abstract selected original works of this epoch by superimposing picture levels, blurring, overpainting and re-composing them. In the process, my very own flowing structures and pictorial rhythms emerge, while the original colour composition remains largely untouched. In sum, colour and form transform into a single aesthetic-abstract event that is experienced on a purely emotional level and independent of time and space as a holy moment. The underlying historical works thus experience a current dimension of perception while at the same time creating the impression of a déjà-vu when contemplating my abstract neopaintings. Through this form of digitally painterly, abstract re-staging of the original, I build a finely balanced bridge to contemporary art without disenchanting. ARTSTIC TECHNIQUE AND MATERIALS Neopaintings - This designation for Jason Engelbart‘s works stands for the topicality of his work in our digital age and is also his artistic program. Because since 2010 he works and experiments with the diverse digital tools of the computer. But despite their purely technical origins, Engelbart‘s work does not appear to be overcooled technologically, but rather looks like artfully executed, extremely sensitive color compositions. This is the special magic of his so-called neopaintings.