This artist firmly believes that painting is not a reproduction of reality, it is more a process that shapes the presence and creates new entities, emotions and relations. The protagonists in the works of Armin Rohr are not quite finished, they have not reached their peak. They are just a shadow or a blur in the colorful surroundings. The artist chooses bleak whiteish figures to stress out the inconstancy of human nature. Everything can vanish into the oblivion in just a spur of the moment, nothing is permanent and our world is maybe just a passage between some other realities. People in his painting are always portrayed in anticipation as they are waiting for something to happen.
Armin Rohr was born in Hemsbach on Weinheim, and he attended Saarbrücken University, where he graduated in design, and then studied painting at HBK Saar with Prof. Bodo Baumgarten. He got many studying and working scholarships. He has been teaching free drawing since 2003. This artist paints under the influence of abstract art, but what he creates is has more substance and form. He likes to believe that he creates new realities, or just discovering existing ones. Like photographs snap the moment in time, the paintings capture the moment in emotional and contemplative life. So, that moment cannot show the whole process - what was before and what might come after, hence the anticipation viewer can experience when facing the Rohr's work.
In his colorful and pastel paintings, the childer are playing, the gentlemen are working, teddy bears are getting into street fights. The silhouettes indicate unfinished business, not just in a contemplative way, it is the story not told to the end, because the protagonists didn't reach their goal, we caught them in the middle. And it is not nice where they are going. Toys are getting into trouble, children are insecure and melancholic just by aimlessly walking down the park, the adults are two dimensional. Not everything is colored with dark meaning, some of his art is comic, and the end result is the ultimate satire. What Armin's doing is leaving open space for interpretation and his unfinished characters can be shaped by the viewer's impression.
Armin believes in a synergy of sound and color, of emotion and color, and through his spectrum, he manages to depict intention and reflection. He uses acrylic and oil paint and works with both linen and wood canvas. The artist finds inspiration in newspaper, magazines, children's toys, from all sorts of modern media where the world is captured in the moment, where images are inanimate and superficial. Making the reference to the fake image the media produces, Armin chooses to put all those objects into his work, where they can live and tell the story that's more than news flash and media hype. The trivial world of images, comics, and the advertisements looses its shocking and bold color appeal but gets a whole new life in his painted imaginarium.
The artist is represented by Galerie Neuheisel.
All images copyright of the artist
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