STATEMENTS

Dott. Prof. Emanuela Catalano, Firenze, 2008

Abstract and straggly paintings made with lushly colors attract our attention. Soft lines make us feel content and invite us to deepen the dialog with its author. In his abstract main tasks including fascinating mixed techniques the viewer sometimes seems to recognize realistic elements.
We should not think that these pieces of art belong to the symbolism.

We stand before the choice which is tantamount to Ungaretti and Quasimodo.

The paintings are comprised of few colors which create areas of simplicity and peace. In the simple signs which shape the opus the basic colors are mirrored. His works attain a sweet distinction out of the nature which surrounds us.
We are shown a calm approach of the human contents with sentimental affection. The analysis reveals the sensitivity of the artist and combines his artistic talent with his rare inner richness. The author tells us abstract stories about strength and merriment via the beauty of the art of painting. Through this the viewer is carried away.
In the pictures we see one should not overlook the overwhelming social instances which express the overcoming of essential difficulties of the modern human.

Ursula Blanchebarbe, Siegen

Generous, clearlyformulated, independently developed colour areas and colour runs, dense and transparent colour layers, symbolic, accentuated formed figures, outlined paths, transformations and the constant effect of colour, its radiance, depth and temperature. F. Baumgart-Kanena's paintings present themselves as a visual event, as an unfolded, sensual effect of art. The paintings are composed. Neither warmth of feeling nor intentions playthe main roles, rather thatwhat the eye demands from a composition and how paintings deal with it.

For the creation of the individual shapes such Šs areas, one particular medium dominates - colour. It's the basic colours and mixtures which compress themselves into areas and figures. Colours become everything which go to make up a picture, the form, figure, thoughts, shade and mood of an expression. The act of painting: casting the canvas with the feeling and identification of movement, bringing together time and aim, the formulation of an aesthetic experience. Through the use of colour, the works of art radiale their complexity. The pictures are not aimed at the whole perspective, the rigidity of a basic framework or the establishment of a mastered System, rather they develop themselves in the possibility of encountering oneself, the free development of attraction and repulsion. A feeling of being alive emerges from these components, by which the thought can be carried from the senses and by which surprises and peculiarities will be formed and retained.

A picture grows gradually together for the observer. Firstly he sees the unity and then the approach of mutual colour influences as well as form and colour references. Effects begintopush themselves into the foreground. One picture can be transparent, another can be closed, a third can be more shadowy then firmly contoured. Every one of these scenic formations appears unused and unencumbered. The picture subjects unfold

out of themselves, each one having its own story. Each painting consists of clearly separated picture subjects or painting subjects, to which certain colour schemes belong to. The coming together of all these factors happens in the picture itself, Šs if the subjects come from different picture worids an break out into the common picture. At first one does't see the full picture, but one moves within the picture Šs an observer - from the surface to the line, from the densely covered to the thinly run and to the layered colours, from shiny colours to matt colours, from form to formless spread.

It's not possible to see everything combined, as sometimes one thing is picked out then followed by its contrast and other things around it. By doing this the other subjects are lost from the picture.

The questions, firstly, as to how painting subjects can seperate within a projection surface and secondly, how a connection and a picture effect can develop from this Separation and independance, can be answered by a visual experience. In the process of combining with other subjects a single subject develops its own energy, intensity and a sensuous, unusual quality which fills the picture with vitality and self- assurance. As the subjects come together a peculiar tension is developed which is never static. It transforms yellow under one's eyes. One sees the contrast between yellow and red or black. Indeed yellow is an element and separates itself again in a covered, closed form and in mixed, open areas. A Suggestion is made to the equal importance of the colours, whose brightnessand meaning plays an outstanding role in modern painting. Whilst red has naturally held a firm place Šs a primary colour in the colour circle, black has managed to be accepted as an independent colour in this Century. In juxtaposition red wards off the darkness of black and in doing so an own colour worid is developed which is intensified additionally by the use of moving figures and drawings. The bright primary colour yellow offen appears. It intensifies the picture's depth through the use of red and black and brings a spatial dimension into being which transfers itself Šs the orientation point in the whole work of art. A closed painting surface is seen for itself, artistically opened, a line transforms itself into a surface and back again, a small element suddenly appears important in another context, or a closed, powerfui, protruding form exists itself again, resulting from a tender and flowing transition. One cannot rely on the connections, they change like the subjects and strengthen their own being. Each colour, each form develops its own quality of effect from these related tensions and transformations.

This beyond oneself effect, this inner vitality and sensuous charging brings the picture into the forefront. With the collision of subjects and the resulting changes, each single subject develops an increase in effect, a radiation, a clarity. Each form, each colour loads itself onto a quality of space which one sees Šs an emergence, overlap, seif compression. Activity forms develop from condition forms. It is the space impulses which develop in F. Baumgart-Kanena's paintings and from which one experiences the discontinuity Šs unfolding not Šs demanded sensuality.