Hans-Willi NotThoff - Large Abstract original serigraphy "Cargo" limited edition (50) signed

• Original color serigraph from the series "Cargo". Edition of only 50 copies, signed and numbered in pencil. Very good condition.

Hans-Willi Notthoff is a full-blooded painter who places color, as an essential ingredient of the pictures, at the center of his work. People have been concerned with this phenomenon since ancient times.
The philosophers Plato and Aristotle, Newton and Goethe as thinkers of the modern age, renowned painters of the 20th century such as Wassily Kandinsky, Johannes Itten and Josef Albers investigated colour as a material and symbol and developed comprehensive colour theories that are still the basis of research today. Colour and its use in painting, mosaics, stained glass and textiles have had a significant impact on the cultural history of the West. In Christianity, coloured windows were part of a complex iconography of light and an integral part of liturgical processes.
For abstract art, the theoretical examination of color served as a key basis for the emergence of new styles. Monochrome and meditative positions, expressive abstraction and color field painting from Rothko to Albers dominated the art of the post-war period. Josef Albers (*1888 in Bottrop) published his book "Interaction of Color" in 1963, in which he presented his theoretical considerations on perception, which form the basis of his color field studies. Albers investigated the interaction of color relationships and differentiated between "actual fact", the objective optical conditions, and "factual fact", the subjective sensory visual experience. In doing so, he formulated generally valid theses that are also applicable to the work of Hans-Willi Notthoff.
Notthoff, who completed his studies under the renowned color-space-body painter Gotthard Graubner, deals intensively with the diverse aspects of color theory and analyzes the effect and harmony of color through his painting.
The current series of works consistently focus on an extremely reduced formal language. Circles serve as research fields, which appear as the main protagonists on the canvas in a variety of ways. The artist positions the colored round disks in a variety of compositional schemes on the painting surface. Hans-Willi Notthoff creates entire series of pictures that have the same basic format. The canvas thus becomes an experimental surface for the painter, who arranges the circles in different ways.
If the arrangement formally follows the vertical central axis of the picture, the result is a linear static and noticeable calm of the circles, which consist of an inner core and outer, concentrically arranged rings. The painter decides on the combination of colors intuitively, but when selecting them he rationally follows the laws of various color theories, of which he has extensive knowledge.
If the exact compositional orientation of the objects in the center of the picture is missing, the effect of the round elements in the picture space is tense and impulsive. The colored discs fly weightlessly and energetically across the canvas and are in a noticeable relationship to one another. Instead of centered rigidity, dynamism and movement determine the action. The colorful balls act, float and rotate up and down, or sideways beyond the border of the picture space. The colors shimmer and flicker, shine and glow and present themselves as independent bodies in polyphonic interplay.
The compositions can be pastel and homogenous, or intensely colorful and rich in contrast. In the borderline area with dark colors, lighter tones appear even lighter and vice versa. The valence of the color changes with the respective environment. The painter explores the entire spectrum of the palette and analyzes color as a material, examining the physical presence and its psychological effect.
The acrylic paint is partially applied in a glaze, allowing the lower layers of paint to shine through and thus adding two original colors to create new values. The viewer can follow the process of creating the picture, recognize where the artist drew the first ring with a broad brush and where the next one. A compass ensures accurate symmetry and precise curves. The rhythm of the picture is sometimes evenly timed, then again irregular and inconsistent. The geometric shapes and their arrangement determine the physical spatial structure of the works. The sound spectrum of the colors is endless and evokes warmth, cold, heaviness, lightness, melancholy or pure happiness. Hans-Willi Notthoff seems to explore the essence of colors psychologically.
Understanding the images requires logic, aesthetic sense and a high degree of sensuality. The viewer can get involved both intellectually and emotionally. Caspar, the artist's thirteen-year-old son, interprets his father's images as "planets in the universe" that radiate great calm. Perhaps the primal symbol of the circle is associated with things like the cosmos, our solar system or the moon.
In fact, however, in the work of Hans-Willi Notthoff, colour has overcome objectivity and stands in the hierarchy above the figurative world in order to refer as an autonomous instance to pure SEEING as an elementary act.
Gisela Elbracht-Iglhaut www.kunstmuseum-solingen.de