Painting is constant self-knowledge and the Hare is world bridger

„Everyone is an artist“ and everything is art, one can argue anthroposophically in the sense of Joseph Beuys, who declared the dead hare to be art in 1965 and crowned it a symbol of freedom in 1982. But the point is different. In order to remain true to one‘s own being and that of art, education, dedication, leisure, talent in the classical sense, and constant self-examination are required in order to recognize this unity in the whole. In order to experience it and thus expand the concept of art, it is advisable to look at Beuys‘ entire statement. Thus, every human being „on the way to the form of freedom of the social organism“ is an artist. Everyone carries the potential within himself and is always creative on the way to himself as a being. Every being is artist in this sense, with it the moment of the creation is meant, which lives in everything, also in the hare and in the dead hare.

The attempt to assign the individual paintings or the oevre to a style period ultimately leads one again and again to the painting of Tina Oelker. She is avant-garde in the classical sense. The complete work of 1000 Hares is unique in the art world due to the concept in its abundance and the reference to the essence of painting itself. As a child of the 70s, the artist has almost no choice but to go through all the art movements of the 20th and 21st centuries to free herself from precisely that. Looking at the hares chronologically, this process becomes clearly visible. A self-definition requires demarcation and at the same time a concentrated openness for allowing one‘s own ductus.

Until accomplishment, it should take at least three and a half years to realize the complete work painterly (Tageshase # 0001, December 2014). In contrast to serial art, the principle of repetition applies with the prerequisite of the uniqueness of each individual painting. By limiting the motif and format, painting is allowed to unfold freely within this clearly defined scope. Boundaries become perceptible and painting is thrown back on itself. By detaching itself from the motif again and again, she manages to constantly create new variations in this format. The impression of self-evidence, familiarity and lightness is well thought out concept.

The format 23,6 x 15,7 x 2 in creates in the juxtaposition the impression of a mirror at eye level, resembles in the series an ancestral series and stands in the objecthood at the same time for itself also alone. Colouring and composition entice, conspicuously visible in the first hundred to two hundred paintings, initially somewhat louder in their power of colour and immediacy. The alternation between figuration and abstraction becomes more and more evident in the subsequent paintings. This pendulum movement becomes faster and increasingly intense, until it does not matter whether the mere assertion of the series affiliation makes the viewer see a hare or the real intention through painting. Now Everything is Hare.

Looking at the radiance of the entire work, an implosion of each individual picture comes to light. The single picture with the intention of a thousand makes prematureness seem, however, the hare with the persistent and steady pace of painting reaches its goal after seven years and shows its interned potential in every form. The calculated time of three and a half years is stretched, the format blown up after six hundred paintings, the materiality expanded. The drawing as the basis for painting, the intuitive and purposeful stroke always strong enough to be Hare.

My name is _______, what do I know
I know - already I‘m gone again.
Hamburg, June 27, 2016