After his retirement, Manfred Oehmichen dedicated his time intensely to acrylics and printings with oils. While traditional „acrylic painting“ is a time-consuming process, with the practical and theoretical support of Win Labuda, Manfred Oehmichen was able to develop a comparatively rapid printing technique – monotyping -- that allows him to create oil paintings (see texts on paintings: Monotypies).
The question of the meaning of his drawings and paintings is easy to answer: they are intended above all else to be beautiful, that is lively, vital, exciting, luminous. This does not mean that they are meant to be merely pleasant, sympathetic or charming. In any way they must also be internally coherent, following an internal emotional and/or logical concept. Paintings that appear “dark”, “negative”, or “aggressive” can also be beautiful if they achieve their effects emphatically and without gratuitous ornamentation.
Texts about painting
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Despite unavoidable changes over time, my drawing exhibit similarities that can be followed from the earliest to those of the present day. The drawings usually originate in random scribbling, which are then distilled to remove any excess, leaving an essence of interesting structure/s.
To drawning |
Despite some clear changes over the years, certain features have repeated themselves over and over again. A traditional acrylic painting technique is used to create– usually on canvas –.two-dimensional structures suspended in a nebulous-glimmering atmosphere. These structures are then confronted at the center of the painting by curved and sharply angled figures.
To Acrylic Paintings |
Though it has a long tradition, this technique has seldom been executed in this form and rarely practiced with such diversity: Oil paint is applied to the painting surface and immediately – while still moist – transferred by a hydraulic press to paper or canvas. The pressure produces a random distribution of the arbitrarily applied paint. Only one or two images are the product of this process.
To Monotypes |