Objects & Scapes

Grounding his practice in the major movements of 20th century art history, the German painter and sculptor, Christian Achenbach (b. 1978 Siegen, Germany) uses the lens of postmodernism as a prism to conjure his arresting landscapes. The artist intelligently repositions and reforms established languages and ideas, reframing them in a fresh, new context. Achenbach’s creative process lends itself to the world of musical composition where the multiplicity of violently clashing colours and shapes emphasises shifts of tonality. This evokes a materiality of sound that reveals Achenbach’s own love of music - a passion shared with the late artist Kandinsky, who once claimed that he saw colours when listening to notes - something we might understand today as a form of synesthesia. It can be argued that the compositions and painterly rhythms of both artists are focused on creating a form of hybrid musical score where pictorial space can be equated with sound. A close engagement with Achenbach’s art historical quotations reveals an intelligent conversation with the movements of Modernism and Postmodernism, in terms of art but also in terms of musical history.
“Objects and Scapes” is Achenbach’s latest incarnation of works. Whereas his paintings demonstrate a shift from abstraction towards the more traditional genre of landscape, his new glass and steel sculptures refer to Futurism. They capture the play of light between translucent objects and opaque forms. The artist has moved away from machine-like compositions towards a more poetic language encompassing cosmic patterns that revel in their lightness of being. In these new sculptural works, Achenbach explores the ability of Lalique glass (an established luxury glass brand), to absorb, disperse and transform light and colour. The artist then juxtaposes this brilliant luminosity with the opacity of painted steel.