CHRISTIAN D. STEFANOVICI - Haschen nach Wind. Malerei

Stefanovici prepares his painting utensils using traditional methods: mixing pure pigments in bone glue, stretching canvas over a stretcher frame and frequently applying a first coat of white gesso. As can be seen from a number of paintings in the exhibition, this gesso coat lends an opaque quality to the paint application, giving it another “tone” on the base material.
Stefanovici deliberately embraces painterly traditions but in spite of this – or maybe even because of it – he likes to break with established dogma. Through his use of lineation in pastel on compositions consisting of coloured areas, he combines two pioneering artistic approaches of the Renaissance: the Florentine “disegno” with the primary focus on the linear structure of a drawing and the Venetian principle of “colorito”, which juxtaposes colours to define a composition. The inclusion of a written word in the picture also flies in the face of art doctrine.