Tim Trantenroth

Tim Trantenroth discovers the motifs for his paintings and installations primarily in urban spaces. They are always excerpts from architecture, urban situations, the clear structures of façades with their window openings, but also the omnipresent barriers and technical surveillance devices that are so typical of our time. Trantenroth translates such evidence of the moulding and shaping of urban space - both historical and contemporary - into a visual language that marks the boundary between the representational and the non-representational.

Painting is his way of exploring the world, insofar as he uses it to scrutinise things and reflect on ‘their connotations in a contemporary political context’ (Trantenroth). In his murals, Tim Trantenroth translates structures orientated on architectural façades into illusionistic painting that opens up the wall and space and changes them in a lasting way (as Roman mural painting was already able to do). Here the painting is precise, sharp-edged and extremely rich in colour contrast, whereas the paintings on canvas or hardboard are subtly coloured, delicately blurred, with clearly visible traces of the brushstroke and painting process.

Text: Dr Maria Müller-Schareck (Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen)