By Heidi Trautmann

Born in Konstanz/Bodensee in Germany in 1960, the artist studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, The Royal College of Arts in London and the Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf between 1981 and 1988. He currently lives in Munich and Stuttgart and works at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart as professor since 2010.

The artist was present at the opening of the exhibition on March 08 and as I understood he came here with his works for the present exhibition on the invitation of Prof. Dr. Turan Aksoy, Head of the Arucad University whom he had met in Girne before.

Lithographs, prints and paintings with acrylic, different painting techniques on paper, all unframed, the naked art on the walls, which I prefer. Playful painting in the pure sense of the word, paintings without motives, abstract.  The theme is STRATA…Stratum the layer; everything in our surroundings are layers of something, we, buildings, mountains, a tree, the air…the artist made the layers visible through the transparency of colours.  To explain it with words… you go for a walk and observe so many things simultaneously and you write your impressions down without any punctuation, resulting in layers of impressions, comes close to poetry. I have tried it myself, interesting.

Thomas Bechinger appears to be a rather humble personality; there are only four lines of vita and a photo …him in a working pose….he does not talk much….he paints…

The beautiful catalogue starts with the following text written by Oya Silbery:

His approach to peripheral realm for paint, left as representational patterns of striking lights and shadow, appearing instantaneously in the eyes of an observant, embodied in the form of strata.

The artist creates surfaces with translucent tones of colour by controlling the flow of the acrylic paint on untreated paper ‘the dynamism ripens into stratas through his particular artistic approach and it is manifested in his paintings.

Despite his disposition to obscure the clues and indications about the subjects, the feeling of familiarity is remarkable in Bechinger paintings.

Surfaces of vivid hues seem to be independent from a particular incident or place; yet they radiate a meditative feeling which brings the spectator together with his/her own experience….  

The exhibition is still open until 31 March 2019, viewing times are according to the working hours of The House Restaurant.