Background

Traditional realism of old painters is reflected in the work of german artist BRIGITTE SCHNEIDER. Her topic is Italy, Tuscany to be precise, its feeling, way of life, architecture and landscape. The seeming idyl of her oil paintings however is scattered by irritations, by new amazing perspecitves effortlessly incorporating the absurd. BRIGITTE SCHNEIDER moves reality and perspectives into a new context. Houses emerge from vegetable crates, beach scenes in terracotta flower pots, an umbrella is poked into a drinking glass, a winebottle becomes a column, stonesteps appear as folded paper, a grapevine grows figs, lemons and oranges, zypresses are wrapped in giftband, Italian villages are charmingly situated on a chair, in a fruit-basket or in a casserole on anelaborately laid dinner table. There are spaghetti-curtains, roads plastered with citrus fruit or olives or roof tiles. In shelves and cardboard-boxes chirchtowers emerge next to grenadillas or espresso-cups with the occasional roman column appearing. Leaks replace ceiling beams, cupboards are filled with landscapes, picture frames are hanging in the air and fruit are nailed to the wall.

Her technique is oil on canvas, 4-5 thin layers of paint on top of each other, elaborated with finest paintbrushes. The pictures consist of mainly four colours: black, white, Terra di Siena and a light ochre. This pallette resulted after a painting phase of using only black and white. The desire for more colours only emerged gradually after adding terra di Siena to the black and white and later the light ochre.

„Pictures of deceit“ BRIGITTE SCHNEIDER calls her work. Visions of mediterranian archictecture and landscapes invite the strained senses to flee from an industrialized reality into the realm of beauty. Pictures of towns emerge before they became cities, recollections of countrysides before they fell prey to a mechanically driven agriculture. The invitation to recuperate in a seemingly ideal world however becomes a warning not to trust your own imagination. The picture of seeming idyl is instantly deceited by emerging as a poster, only held together by cellotape and strings or nailed on frames, as fragile as the commercialised world. Where phantasy still belives the colourful puppets of comedia dell`arte to dance, modern building workers have put up barrier tapes long ago.

For more than 20 years, BRIGITTE SCHNEIDER has been drawing political caricatures for the renowned daily paper Süddeutsche Zeitung in Germany.