Alexander Radtke

Lives and works in Cyprus

Artist statement

Art, for me, is a space where we stop performing. It is where emotion can become more important than logic, and where the subconscious can speak through images. I work primarily with painting, rooted in Abstract Expressionism, while allowing ideas to extend into mixed media, objects and installation when the work requires it. My process begins from not knowing: an impulse, image, memory or gesture appears first, and meaning is discovered through the act of making. My recent practice has developed through Nude Landscape, an ongoing exploration of the unstable boundary between the human body and landscape. Skin can become terrain, a body can resemble water, and a horizon can suggest physical presence. I am interested in what happens when the categories we use to understand ourselves and our surroundings begin to loosen. I now see Openness as the next stage of this research. It moves beyond the relationship between body and landscape toward questions of perception, memory, vulnerability, transformation and the boundaries between inside and outside, known and unknown. I do not seek to provide fixed meanings. Instead, I create spaces in which viewers can encounter their own memories, emotions and interpretations. The work begins with uncertainty, and remains open to what may emerge.

Artwork