Nomands Square N° 05_14 Print

THE NOMADS SQUARE – a series of contemporary paintings The conceptual and non-representational series The Nomads Square invites you to a self-engendering aesthetic discovery. As with other series, the artist prefers a given format (30 x 30 cm) and employs oil paint which is applied to the canvas in massive layers using a spatula or similar tools. New work is created each day without following a preconceived “protocol”. In this way, individual images seem to diverge in development, yet others claim spontaneous eruptions to become a singular existence. There is a constant progression lying in condensing, digging, experimenting and dissolving. The manner of work is similar to that of a calligrapher. In quick succession, stages of work and decisions are guided intuitively, as well as completely rejected or newly created. The tendency towards virtuosity - in the sense of Asian mastery - merges with the lifestyle of the nomads of Mongolia. The artist has lived and experienced nomadic culture in numerous trips and projects in the Mongolian steppes. Just as nomads do not actually travel to “foreign” land, but “travel” on “their” earth, with which they feel connected, so the canvas here offers an entrance to an infinite variation of introspection of the smallest perceptible units. Nomadic life endures. It moves on and leaves what is. Many terms used today such as holism, sustainability, species-appropriate husbandry, climate-friendly, management of waste prevention etc. are not new in the nomadic perspective but rather parameters of natural life. Here, the artist takes the canvas as an example of a changing location. Similar to the mandala The Infinite City, which is visualized as a perfect square arrangement and symbol of the world with the meditator above the head, the artist uses the canvas as a daily mirror to understand the world. The artist breaks free from convention and appropriates some of the most advanced technical components from the latest “revolution” in arts. With these new transformational enabling tools in painting, along with the traditional techniques from art, science, philosophy, poetry and industriy, the artist articulates and facilitates his deeply personal exploration into the fundamental questions of the human condition. During the process, he erases the gap between modernity and tradition, reality and unreality, life and substance, between individuals, and even the essential difference between humanity and other forms of life. Marc`s painting practice may contribute to this sensitivity to the “unexpected” state, which makes him often stop before the changes of daily things and rethink the habits and laws in his own consciousness and behavior. Together with other similar events, “accident” promotes his repeated examination of the substance and functionality of painting materials, and furthermore makes him interact with a certain painting tradition. Consistent, Marc prefers to find the traces of painting from real life itself. Following this path, he tried to combine freely and “accidentally” these simple structures and materials in an atypical way, and treat the material properties from a daily perspective, emphasizing the function and potential carried by the structure itself, or spread, reinforce, wrap, tighten, so that the structure upon the surface coat amid the colors would generate a fluid and unfinished state. Gradually, he realized that only after the disintegration of nature entirely, in the traditional sense of painting, the dialogue between elements would become liberated, making it possible to produce a new wholeness and new relations. Sara Morris “The palace that we first conquer and then dignified to inhabit is the head of man, our head… (..) every person is a sun king, every person is actually sovereign. All of this is withheld from us by politics: Our sovereignty is represented by other individuals and immediately betrayed in the process .. ” Joseph Beuys * Basically I would consider myself as a conceptual artist, and by this I follow researching ideas towards understanding the contemporary issues of the „world“ by transforming visual statements. Actually, the concept is only for leaving it (the concept) behind, the same moment the creative process has begun. A painting session reflects the entire space that is currently available, that Nomads Square is a pars pro toto for. The exercise is joy and seeks to be expanded in all possible areas. In this series of work, the Nomads Square serves as a flight path and is an aeronautical checkpoint by facing the infinite variety of events and things that affect us each moment, to summarize and to abandon once again. I would call the point of origin to that series a diverse Multidisciplinary, that reaches back to the origin of expression. Entering a new environment offers the opportunity to experience every single notion for the first time, and in so doing, constructs a personal weave by sorting the mental traces. While diving through massive sensual inputs of the daily environment, we use filters in organizing our orientation. Which filters do we trust, which operate well for us, which do care for our well being? Do I have any external theory, system, metaphysical science, “order” left, to take as granted (?) towards my next step. And would there be any chance to just step in the “right” direction? If we look at the following years after 2020 as a turning point, and many people are doing so in terms of the challenges posed by climate change (I am afraid how technically and externally this debate is conducted, as though we were not integrated as part of nature, as if we, humans, do not need protection and a sustainable view of ourselves), then it is the task of contemporary art, if it deserves the attribute, to grasp the aesthetic dimension (in the sense of perception) of this change. Sometimes I am asked what I think about either this or that art, and what meaning I would have in mind. And of course it is possible to think a lot about this or that. However, it is a privilege for me not to think when I create art. Thinking does not lead to new experience, but to the decision to make new experience possible. My practice is characterized by a constant negotiation between concrete references and general allusions, between poetic ephemerality and an uncanny sense of visceral immediacy. This work investigates the unexpected, often little known, effects of cross-cultural dynamics, making visible patterns of artistic migrations and cultural disguise. Everything is always carried through time. We say we are children of time, but when can we actually feel it? It is of course a certain risk to keep balance in constant dissolution processes (of painting) and to design something that only lasts in brevity. And hold on until it becomes true, with my feeling, and put the tedious evaluation on hold. Then, I just intuit the work is finished, leaving it to remain. The studio offers an ideal environment to host this inner refugee and to materialize it’s spirit. A Butoh pirouette of inner mechanics rather than an optimization. Optimization is enacted hierarchically, yet perception encompasses much more than that. And what is already there can be presented in different ways, in constant dynamics. A visual diary in January/ February 2020. Marc Schmitz