Untitled (purple)
Ernst Caramelle
Sun-faded color paper, 21,4 x 27,5 cm
Germany/USA 2000–2002
“Small-format works on paper form an exception of lasting durability in Ernst Caramelle’s paintings. For many years, he has frequently used an unusual technique in which the work’s coloring is due solely to the effects of light rather than any manual brushwork. Colored paper is partly covered with stencils and exposed to sunlight. By repeating this process several times, different sections of the paper fade to differing degrees, creating clear geometrical shapes in a variety of shades. These images are fundamentally different from painting in its original sense, for the visible forms are solely the result of reduction brought about by transformation. Consequently, the images, at least in terms of their coloring, are two-dimensional. The ultimately very simple interaction between shades and effects of perspective is fixed in an aesthetic formation which can also be interpreted as architectural three-dimensionality. With this experimental technique, Caramelle returns the process of photography to fundamental parameters. The exposure time is demonstratively lengthened and can even in principle be regarded as not yet complete.” (Niemeyer 2016: 16)
Ernst Caramelle, born 1952 in Hall in Tirol, lives and works in Frankfurt am Main, Karlsruhe and New York.
Reference
Thomas Niemeyer, “Ernst Caramelle,” in Sun on Paper – Art/Experiment/Photography, eds. Thomas Niemeyer and Andreas Krase (Nordhorn: Städtische Galerie Nordhorn, Dresden: Technische Sammlungen Dresden, 2016), pp. 16–21.