Artwork
Birgid Vietz uses carefully in an intelligent, thoughtful and sensible way in her art a vocabulary of traditional art movements such as Constructivism and Suprematism combining their melody with nuances from the archaic or even cultic art of indigenous people.
Birgid Vietz applies forms of expression such as wood engraving, collage and painting.
The subject
Birgid Vietz’s artisitic creativity centres on the human being. What she is aiming to do is to visualise the primitiveness of man’s existence and to communicate the realisation that we are no different from our forefathers when it comes to the important things in life.
In doing so, she uncovers the invisible roots of our conscious awareness, archetypical forms of experience, basic features and conceptions that determine everything that we do without us being aware of them.
In her search for simplicity, artlessness and fundamentality, Birgid Vietz is constantly creating new and exotic worlds of her own. Her work shows a strong affiliation with nature.
The form
Most of her works are characterised by densely filled pictures with linear boundaries. Shapes dissolve and converge again as surfaces before breaking open again into associations of the human body.
The intensity is produced by a modulation, which increases as the chroma changes from light to dark or alternatively remains in the monochrome range.
Recognisable shapes and motifs are reminiscent of animalistic, embryonic or pisciform figures, which ultimately share the same roots. These shared roots also give rise to the determinate pictorial symbols, such as eyes, spirals and phallic shapes that augment the picture to produce a unity of feminity and masculinity. The form language avails itself of the antitheses opening / closing, hot / cold, light / dark and opposite poles.
The colours
Colour is the sole constituent of a picture for many artists. One thing that they all have in common is that their preoccupation with colour allows them to enter spiritual dimensions. This interpretation of colour can also be seen in the work of the 19th century masters. Birgid Vietz bases her vividly coloured paintings on the achievements of old masters. The influence of Gotthard Graupner is evident in the restrained brilliance of the colours and the pastel-like effects in some of her early works. These effects are produced by applying several layers of translucent paints, beginning with a light shade and gradually becoming darker.
The influence of Asian calligraphy is evident in her later works, with bold, spontaneous strokes and harmonious yet very vibrant colours permit vivid and restless designs that have been worked out to the last detail.
The artistic means
Graphic artworks, Engraved wood prints
Each engraved wood print is unique, printed by hand and some with expressive colourfulness. They reveal a very personal and distinctive style imbued with great expressiveness. In some cases, the artist has used old findings, such as old wooden doors or stairs, incorporating fragments into her compositions. The piece of old wood are then transformed into representations of archaic figures and demons. The picture is composed as a whole image. Engraved wood prints constitute the main focus of the artist’s work. Wood-printed elements are also used in other types of work, like a continuous thread that is woven into her pictures including the collages where they add their own new statements. They present completely different forms of expression by virtue of the filigree patterns.
Her water colours, on the other hand, show filmy compositions of an almost poetic delicateness. The same applies to her collages, which represent one of the artist’s most distinctive characteristics in terms of uniting different materials and shapes.
Unlike the diversity of colour and form found in her engraved wood prints, Birgid Vietz’s paper collages are of a more contemplative nature. They reflect the creative involvement with Asian calligraphy and the aesthetics of Japanese and Chinese pen and ink drawings. Most of these pictures are relatively small with reduced form and colour; the base colours orange, blue and green are paraphrased by black lines. The subtle charm of these collages comes from the motionless, almost still-life juxtaposition of the materials. In some of the pictures, strips of feathery paper cover the symbols beneath them like a veil, whereas other works almost take on the form of objects with several layers of material applied on top of one another.
an unknown third eye
the eye of a child
the eye of a lover
the eye of an artist
the undazzleable eye
of the earth
of mankind
to be discovered
over and over again
you do not deceive me
This page shows a small selection of examples of Birgid Vietz’s abounding artistic creativity.