| Year of creation | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 100 W × 100 H × 4.2 D cm |
| Type of art | painting |
| Style | abstract |
| Genre | miniature |
| Materials | acrylic, canvas |
| Type of packaging | cardboard box |
Acrylic painting on canvas, using the pure 12 tertiary colors analogous to the Itten color wheel. The yellows and the central squares are slightly lightened, creating the impression of "light coming in" or "windows." Anchoring angle blocks are placed over the basic grid of a 6 x 6 square. The motif is rotated 45° relative to the image format, resulting in two hanging options, both of which are pre-drilled for mounting hardware: 1) Corner hanging of the square – this creates a rhombus with a pronounced point and a very stable horizontal-vertical internal geometry. The four possible hanging options offer quite varied visual expressions. (Photos 1 and 7) 2) Long side hanging of the square – in this, actually more conventional and calmer hanging arrangement, the dynamic of the diagonal has a stronger impact from within – and extends beyond the edges of the format. It almost looks like a different picture... Year of creation: 2024





I am ARTUS, a painter of geometric abstraction from Cologne. I work with acrylic paints on stretched canvas or panels. The majestic serenity of the square, this fundamental form of all geometry, and the radiant energy of its rich, pure colors have deeply captivated me. The continuum of color palettes, the combinatorics of arrangements, the serial variations—infinite expanses of compositional possibilities open up—and are far from being adequately explored. My inspiration comes from the Bauhaus and European Modernism of the 1920s, and from the Anglo-American cultural sphere, from hard-edge painting and Color Field painting. The first catalyst for this direction for me was Paul Klee with his painting "Super Chess..." To name just a few of my inspirations: Johannes Itten, Anton Stankowski, Richard Paul Lohse, Josef Albers, Gerhard Richter, Max Bill, Kenneth Noland, Victor Vasarely, Zdenek Sykora… Art has fascinated me since I was 17, when I won a book about Kandinsky as a high school graduation prize. A guest semester at the Cologne School of Applied Arts for Graphic Design with Professor Wewerka led me through a project entitled "Copying Kandinsky until you get him out of your head and are free for your own." However, the real rollout with tangible, presentable results only came for me during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2022 and 2023—when the 100x100 formats were created in my home office—and soon demanded to be released…
