Jörg Daur EN | CHRISTOF JOHN

Jörg Daur

Christof John

A picture stands in the room. What appears unreal, surreal or like a mirage is reality.

At least in Christof John’s paintings. Although his painting remains on the plane, at the same time it wraps itself like a skin around his pictorial bodies, which confront us as objects in space. He works with wooden panels, the edges sawn, the rims trimmed, departing from the conventional rectangle of the picture. These are not windows into another world, but sections of a “never-ending picture”.
For even if Christof John emphasises the edges of his pictures by colouring them, layering them, giving them a sculptural appearance, he does not see them as a limitation of the picture, but on the contrary as an extension, beyond the edge and into the space. In doing so, the picture has both a front and a back, which – depending on the angle of view – is pushed in front of it, becomes visible behind it and is thus optically superimposed. His pictorial objects are folded like screens, so the different levels are constantly being added up anew. The picture does not stand still, it is multi-faceted and constantly changing. John’s painterly design of his surfaces is proof of the fact that this withdrawal is part of his painting concept. Camouflage-like patterns spread across them, superimposed in collage-like layers. On the one hand, they are full of space, immense optical depth, but on the other hand, they leave it completely undecided who is in the foreground or background here. In addition, gaps in the painting provide glimpses that echo both the collaged patterns and the amorphous edges of the picture.

A walk around the pictorial object reveals just how varied the surfaces are: the “simple” stripe pattern on the back is significantly disturbed by the cut-outs in the frame, while the multiple superimposed structures on the front enter into a visually productive dialogue with them. This is where pictorial space and object space merge. This extends so far that even the folds of the surface seem to disappear in the optical sensation of the painting. Speaking of sensation, a closer look reveals imperfections, shifts in the patterns that may be deliberate, but could also be due to the production process. Here, Christof John speaks of “gifts”, meaning unforeseen things that in turn challenge and propel the pictorial process, both in creating and in seeing, which can ultimately only be understood together.

The picture is produced in layers. Christof John applies colour with a brush leaving traces of the process visible. Before adding a further layer, he applies masking tape.

And delineates areas, often strips, from the masked areas of the painting, which are then ready for a new layer of paint. Colour is therefore applied precisely where the opaque and thus “protective” masking has been previously removed. The painting itself only becomes visible when all the layers are superimposed and the last strips of tape have been removed. The production is similar to the viewer’s perception – here as there, the image reveals itself in the course of time: at first glance, it is tangible as a long shot, then the eye dives into the different layers, looks through layers, glides over the surface until it has seen – at least a part of the image structure – and grasped it. And here, as there, it stumbles over the “mistakes”: gifts in the pictorial process, but also in the act of viewing,

as perception clings to them and reignites them. Where the structure tears, where a plane becomes fragile, the picture reveals itself as something constructed and so identifies the viewing experience as such. Reflection of the picture begins where the eye stumbles.

Besides painting, Christof John also works on etchings. And indeed, there are similarities in the process here too. With etching, the applied layer forms the protective layer, holding back the acid that would otherwise cause damage to the metal plate and make it receptive to the printing ink. In painting, on the other hand, it is the masking that fulfils this purpose (even though acid is obviously not used here). In both cases, however, this layer is worked into so that the colour can be applied in a further step. One might therefore think that John has borrowed the principle from etching. At the same time, however, he mirrors it back. For as in painting, he also brings further layers into play in etching. When overprinting with additional plates, he places bits of paper between the printing plate and the laid sheet, smuggling them into the printing process interfering, so to speak, so that entire areas are excluded (and thus “spared” from the overprint). This makes each sheet unique – and the lifting of the plate is the actual surprise.

In general, the process of discovering plays an important role in his work. Changes in perspective constantly enable new views and the contrast between close-up and distant views moves both the eye and the body. In this, the colour schemes used play an important role here. On the one hand, they are bright and rich in contrast, yet in the small-scale structure of the patterns they form a kind of fabric that moves over the surface like a carpet of sound and makes it pulsate. Interwoven from a distance and – like the pixels of a projection – blending in the eye, they only reveal their actual high-contrast arrangement up close. And as small-scale structures appear next to larger ones, this process can be experienced from every perspective, and even more, it encourages active participation in the interplay between proximity and distance. It is therefore only logical that Christof John not only abandons the classic canvas and works on MDF (thus emphasising the object character of his painting), but also that he actually places his painting in space. This allows them – in the patterns of the surface – to offer precisely this change of perspective and yet at the same time experience an intensive interweaving with the space. This entanglement initially appears to be a paradox, as we assume the two-dimensionality of every picture to be fundamental. And yet, in the end, it creates a special visual experience, because Christof John succeeds in placing his picture in space without having to forego its painterly sensation and thus its fundamental two-dimensionality.