Selected Paintings

I see paint on the mountain, and I see what could be a sky that is painted in various colors. But when I look at the sky, it is more paint than sky. This dual role of color interests me. The paint is on the surface, and it is in the image. It is both at the same time. I consider this a metaphor for life. To portray, to present, to reveal, to confront: contradiction. And in the end, I have to decide what I’m seeing and understanding. There has to be enough interest to make me reflect on what I’m seeing. And that interest is the presence of the materiality of the paint. The image is only a vehicle for the color and paint. Its materiality gives the painting power: the power to hold my attention. In the end is the question: Do I want to keep looking at the painting? Identity is another point of interest. Annette’s paintings have a color scheme that is like a voice: identifiable. Her color is cool, and the resulting light depicted in the painting suggests depth. All her work has this color and light. The depth or pictorial space can be different. In this painting, I enter the pictorial space from the bottom and go to the top. The sky returns my focus back to me. So I enter the painting, have a visual experience with paint and a mountain, and return to myself and my thoughts about what I’ve experienced. Then what does this painting mean, or is that important? Well, that’s what’s interesting: I have the impression that making this painting is the only important consideration. And it holds my attention. Being alive and interested is all that counts. This painting fulfills my expectations.

In the early phases of Abstract Expressionism it was felt that paintings were most effective when displayed in bare gallery spaces, but Werndl, whose work follows in that tradition, no longer considers the “white cube” to be the ideal location for art. To her thinking, one underrates art and fails to challenge it sufficiently if one thinks it needs to be displayed in sterile isolation to have an effect. On the contrary, she feels that her paintings reveal their true qualities only when she places them in spaces where people routinely gather - living rooms, conference rooms, and offices. There one can see whether art can make a change, give the space “support and energy.” But how can one expect this of paintings? And how does Annette Werndl expect it from hers in particular? They almost always feature many different colors, some very strong and occasionally applied across larger areas. Still, they never seem to be a garish, dazzling confusion of colors. Instead, thanks to strong contrasts, her works take on a special radiance; her colors necessitate each other, as if in collaboration rather than competition. Certain Abstract Expressionists lend atmospheric richness to their painting by reducing its coloring, narrowing the color spectrum, but Werndl follows an opposite, more difficult, approach. It takes courage to rely on many colors at once, and moreover to accept unfamiliar color combinations initially perceived to be inharmonious. Only with great concentration and almost a composer’s sense of colors can a uniform resonance, a higher, more complex form of harmony, be produced above all the conflicting tonalities. Since Annette Werndl does so, her exquisitely balanced paintings can have an effect on an entire space as well as the people in it. And what else could better provide “support”? But that’s not all. The “energy” Werndl speaks of is perceptible in her paintings. It is largely created as a result of her habit of painting in layers. Color emerges onto the surface from the lower layers; sometimes it is exposed by scratching off the layers above it. In this way the impression of depth and movement are created. Especially when intense colors make up the lower layers, it seems as if the whole painting is seething beneath the surface like a volcano. One thus senses a distinct dynamism and energy, and this can extend beyond the edges of the painting to charge a whole room. At the same time, it can seem as if the painting is not a static image at all, but rather in continuous transformation, an ongoing happening. Since a single brushstroke or the way Werndl has drawn a palette knife across the surface of the painting again and again allows one to reconstruct how a painting was produced, one feels like an eyewitness to the creative process. And since this process does not appear to have concluded, one can even imagine being caught up in it, switching from a passive to a more active role. At best it can feel as if one’s own creative faculties are being set free. Also, because Werndl’s paintings exude such energy, they are motivating and stimulating. This makes it all the more important that one encounter these paintings not only in a “white cube,” but rather in a place where people live, work, and congregate with others. Only there can one also direct the experience of “support and energy,” incorporate it into one’s own life and let it bear fruit. The effect of a painting can persist; it does not exhaust itself. In this, paintings are even superior to music, for once music has died away, nothing remains. It is only able to provide “support and energy” while it is being performed. This advantage of pictures is often overlooked or underrated - presumably since in the early years of abstract painting it tended to be justified by a comparison to music. For centuries, visual art had been related to literature, theater, and rhetoric, but abstraction created a major break, for now art divested itself of pictorial narrative, and in exchange created a world independent of reality. Accordingly, abstract art was initially on the defensive, and it was only the comparison to music that seemed to give it support. Almost of necessity, abstraction was seen to be imitating music. But it has since developed its own traditions, its own history of specific techniques and stylistic approaches. For that reason, one can now better appreciate what abstract art can achieve, and in what respects it can be superior to music. Paintings like Annette Werndl’s do not have to be protected in a “white cube.” They can and should be presented in as many different spaces as possible, so that they can fully exhibit their special qualities.