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oil on cardboard, 29 x 52 cm, signed and dated lower left, in paste, "Ghenie, 2001"
Exploring human splits, influenced by personal experiences or by the socio-political context, Adrian Ghenie captures, through his works, the vibrancy of a new generation. "The act of painting has always consumed me a lot.", the artist would declare. Remarkable among contemporary artists, Adrian Ghenie follows his own artistic journey: a fusion of elements dictated by his inner states. His works have a distinctive tenacity, a fiery combination of metaphors and symbols, constantly evolving into abstract compositions. Adrian Ghenie manages to encompass historical references from the art world, the complexity of contemporary events, and his own memories in his works.
Ghenie's style is distinctive, as it relies on instinctive spontaneity. The painter creates a visual atmosphere associated with a hopeless melancholy, a dark space without balance. The artist's works are often described as a surreal, abstract and figurative combination, which Ghenie appropriates by assimilating the "classic" canons, along with technical rigor. All these elements incessantly contribute to the recurring themes in the artist's paintings: the influence of the socio-political past on the present, how every remembrance has its echo on the individual.
Ghenie's artistic journey has been marked by stylistic and thematic changes, his works have become increasingly complex, addressing specific situations and general issues. The present work, "Fallen Angels" is part of a series, from the early 2000s initially exhibited at the Sindan Cultural Center, in which the artist creates his own artistic, solitary and mythological journey. Some of the art works belonging to this cycle are: "The Knight of Death", "Memories" and "Vestiges of Memory". Key-images are essential in the artistic universe signed by Ghenie, his work being structured on recurring symbols: the angel, the wings, the snail or the horse.
In the present work, the angel is the central symbol, along with the wheelbarrow it is pushing. In the painting's diegesis, paradoxically, the angel's gesture creates a connection between the divine and the mundane, emphasizing the hypothesis of an irreversibly fallen world. The exposed world is bleak and hostile, and the angel's body, once luminous, fades into ephemerality. The color palette abounds in shades of black and ochre, implying a certain psychological tension, a disintegration into non-existence. The colors distort the picture, actively participating in the narrative process of the painting. The world presented by Ghenie is encrusted, desolate, detached from an era marked by ephemerality.
Adrian Ghenie remains unmistakable through the themes he proposes in his works. Each painting hides a personal story that can also be transposed into a collective emotion. Ghenie, helped by a modern language in painting, manages to give a form to human fragility.
(C.M.)
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