Monday, September 8, 2008

Unidentified African Landscape, paintings by G. Wessmann

Old Sun, 2008, Oil on Metall , 120 x 95 cm

Painting as a trace of memory. A shadowed light blue, a burning red, a corrosive stripe of purple combine to a picture. Wessmann calls it KARIBA after the dam constructed between 1955 and 58 in the Sambezi valley. Behind this wall of concrete and steel lies a reservoir, that before the erection of the Assuan-dam at the upper nile was the largest dam of Africa, But Wessmann quotes neiher the technical construction nor the topografic of the area or the prosperous wild- life which has it`s habitat there. Wessmann shows colors, recalling what he has seen. These colors are echoes. Echoes of lasting impressions. As the title of the picture is not describing, but sounds like a mysterious formular recalling the place mentioned: KARIBA...

View or read more of/about Gunter Wessman's work at his website.


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