You will find me if you want me in the garden

Werner Thoni ArtSpace, Barcelona, 2019

The project is clearly a reference to the famous landscapes and gardens painted by the impressionist Claude Monet. It can be considered a tribute to the great french master. However,with my work i wanted to go far beyond a mere recreation of Monet´s pieces, give them a new meaning, reinterpret them in a radical way- both in form and in context.

The project´s title stems from the song „The Garden“ by the german band: „Einstürzende Neubauten“, representatives of a sound that is best described as industrial, electronic- not to say dadaist.

The exhibition can be understood as one single installation: A garden.

The concept is based on six key ideas, seperated into antagonistic pairs:

Flat painting / Three-dimensional object

For the creation of the paintings I used acrylic and latex paint on glass.

Once the paint has dried, it is peeled off its support, being freed from its the two-dimensional space, becoming an acrylic skin with unlimited possibilities of transformation into three-dimensional objects.

Start / Ending

Usually the viewer only gets the opportunity to see the end of the painting process, the finished image. There is no possibility to know what the first brushstroke was, how the piece has been created, everything stays hidden. With releasing the painting from its support; the glass; I want to enable the viewer to see behind the scenes, to see the beginning of the creative process.

Technique / Spontaneity

The technical procedure is always the same; rigidly. It is a step by step progress, slowly but surely reaching its climax with the release of the acrylic skin from its cage. A lot of spontaneity can be found in everything happening before and after: the brushstrokes, the chosen colors, the shapes and motifs, transparencies and layers that come together as the final image and, above all, the momentary creation of the different objects that will populate the garden.

Personally i have a very strong connection to: „You will find me if you want me in the garden".

My mother always told me that I only paint strange things; that she doesn't understand them; and asked me why i didn't want to paint something beautiful like flowers or landscapes instead. Well, many years after her request, I felt driven to find a way to paint exactly those; beautiful things that were able to please me and her alike.

Welcome to my garden.