Born in 1960 in Valparaiso (Chile), PINTO works with various materials, he combines the elements of recovery, wood, metal, leather, stone and from there, the mysterious fusion occurs, the enigma of creation invests the space. A dialogue is established with the material. This matter that we believe to be inert is very much alive, we must know how to listen to it, talk to it, understand it, establish a climate of confidence before submitting it to form, we must make it our accomplice.
All the subtlety of art here is to transpose the invisible. The secret is to start from the ordinary to go towards sublimated beauty. It is also necessary to know how to give to the works the most beautiful effects of patina, which is quite an almost hermetic, magical, initiatory knowledge. Poetry is always very present in the work of PINTO, but it is most often the poems of Pablo Neruda which accompany it, which inspire him which allow him to transcend his material. For PINTO, poetry is the primary art, the one that inspires and from which all other forms of creation flow The art of this former student of the renowned non-figurative painter Camille Hirtz is indeed the expression of alleys and permanent coming between the artistic sphere of religious inspiration and the will to free oneself from codifications to concentrate on the message of an intercultural emotion. A colorful allusion to the stained-glass windows of our cathedrals, the work of ROLF BALL is in fact more inspired by the iconographic art of the Orthodox.
At the age of 40, ROLF BALL embarked on an ethnology course at the University of Strasbourg, specializing in the traditional arts of Africa and in parietal expressions. He wrote a dissertation on the art of Byzantine icons, at the same time restoring ancient works and confessing his fascination with the rigorous aesthetic canons and the very strict codes that govern the art of icons. Having specialized in this art, ROLF BALL can therefore dare to venture off the beaten track by the Orthodox, ignore spiritual frameworks and rethink work on icons. Times change, so do the eyes of man.
ROLF BALL wants to reconnect with the art of icons, give it a new destiny by making them more modern and accessible to our contemporary and Western eyes. At first, he frees himself from old techniques to illustrate the sacredness of the iconized characters. However, he takes the greatest care in selecting the pigments and preparing his colors himself. On a black background composed of hair coat paste, he has not given up using an orthodox and ancient technique, that of the puddle: lying on his work in the Russian manner, he applies his pigment drop by drop and waits for the complete evaporation. water so that the different tones of colors can be spread.
Far from the hieratic rigor of the saints represented, he endeavors to break the shapes, to represent smiling characters who let glimpse the relationships that the artist can maintain with the primitive arts, Mayan silhouettes, African masks or simple childish figures. These forms, painted in bright colors and partitioned by geometric lines, occupy their rightful place in these icons of a new genre, steeped in multiple influences.
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