POPCORN Print

Contemporary artist and architect. Lives and works in St. Johann in Tirol, Austria. He has devoted himself to painting for a long time and began painting in acrylic and later in oil. He is also interested in music. He plays the clarinet and saxophone in a German/Austrian group, which has dedicated itself to experimental new music. Music is also an integral source of inspiration for his artwork. His paintings have thus a synaesthetic quality. Colours and shapes always emerge from a relationship with sounds: rhythm, pauses, connection and separation are all elements common to the processes of listening and seeing. From the smooth to the rough from separation to integration In order to consciously distinguish his work from the smooth true-to-life traditions of fine art painting, Bernard Embacher avoids the use of the paintbrush, instead using a technique he himself developed which emphasises his unique method and style of painting. The tonal value of colours, the tints and shades, the paint itself, play a key part in creating the plasticity of the works. He applies paint in thick layers and works on it with the spatula and with crumpled, folded or rolled up sheets of paper. Low and high contours create a remarkable sense of space and depth, and onto the smooth sur¬faces of the oil paint he adds traces of pure pigment, which are blown on, along with charcoal, powdered glass and chalk. Relief.like layers of paint – allow for creative interpretations Every square millimetre of the picture has the same value and contributes equally to the rhythmic effect of the painting. The paste-like application of the paint opens up a sculptural experience and yields a dynamic viewing ex¬perience: being taken into the depths of the work puts the motif of the paint¬ing into the background and opens up whole new worlds. Zooming closely in reveals the minuscule traces of colour as if they were tiny multifaceted micro-organisms. Painting and music – a synaesthetic relationship For motifs, Embacher moves naturally and freely between different fronts: his themes vary from references to historical art, with innuendos and hints refer¬ring to classic genres, all the way up to abstract art. What is essentially here, is his polyphonic painting style. A practising musician himself, his art work is inseparable from the world of sound: colour and form are always connected with musical tones, rhythm, pauses, connection, dissociation ...