German artist Johanna Bath creates contemplative figurative paintings that consider the construction of time. Her highly poetic portraits and somber still lifes attempt to convey bittersweet transience and the impossibility of preserving the fleeting moment. Taking something invisible, the artist creates tender, dreamlike vignettes that capture a palpable sense of time on canvas. Her works, recreated from a variety of source materials, are defined by their gauze-like translucency, denoting the recollection of memories. Johanna works with oils, acrylics and spray paint on canvas, using materials to translate deep, personal thoughts into form.
Read MoreThe idea of "time" and everything that is linked to that emotionally such as memory, transience and the brevity of a moment drives her need to paint. Time is abstract and therefore tricky to paint but when connected to our experience and memory, it is filled with sentiment and emotion.
"My work is about time, it's passing, the fleetingness of a moment and the impact memory has on us as humans. I am interested in finding a visual language for dealing with the loss of the present at any given moment, how memories are stored away in our consciousness, how we remember certain moments and why. I once read that melancholy is ‚the feeling of loss of the present' and found that to be a beautiful paraphrase so I am exploring those feelings in my paintings."- Johanna
Text courtesy Alzueta Gallery.
