Frank Nitsche

Frank Nitsche (Germany, 1964) is one of the leading representatives of German postmodern abstract painting. Tied to the Dresden school of painting, his works are inspired by an imaginary archive of images, the translation and the appropriation of which, becomes the point of departure for most of the artist’s work. Some images reach the canvas by choice, others by chance. Their bearing varies and transforms in time. What enters the canvas at one point classified as highly relevant, might in a split of a second be painted over, or disappear entirely under multiple layers of paint – under fragments of other images, the hierarchy and relevance of which, is in continuous flux.

The paintings of Frank Nitsche are always part of a bigger picture, and as such, a variation of one another and of the context they create. They are variations of a performed graphic superficiality, which instrumentalizes a seemingly artificial and a synthetic appearance, and through visual archetypes, familiar to our collective unconscious, account on the present day image appearance, and its abrupt disappearance.