Christian Hutzinger

The composition of Christian Hutzinger's oil paintings follows a pre-determined pattern. The area of the wall, or, as the case may be, the painting, is defined as the cross-section of a vessel, filled with a most diverse set of shapes. Objects of everyday use and allusions to landscapes appear in their most reduced forms.

A vertical shape in combination with a rectangle with rounded-off corners suggests a tree that has shed its leaves or fruit. What emerges is "a strange world that just keeps on growing and then collapses again." (Christian Hutzinger)

Hutzinger very consciously treats his compositional principles and formal discoveries in the various media in a divergent manner, where drawings, oil paintings and murals follow markedly differing "linguistic strategies. In his drawings, the use of background patterns helps to create spaces into which the artist places chairs, tables and other objects of everyday use. Parallel to this, space remains undefined in his drawings, causing the props to float adrift through the pictures. The paper works, finally, occupy a central position in Christian Hutzinger's oeuvre. They are not to be seen as early stages or design sketches for his oil paintings in the classical sense; rather, they create self-contained spacial situations, into which he positions his paintings as an experimental location and as a final check. His large-format oil paintings are kept in a more reduced and cooler state, with the language fitted to the altered medium. In the murals, Hutzinger links the qualities of both his drawings and his oil paintings, combining the formal power of his shapes and the poetic qualities of his narratives into a complex, inward-facing view of the world.