Painting a Contemporary waterfall | by Richard Somonte

Описание: This painting by Richard Somonte is a powerful and revealing example of his practice, placing itself in a direct and complex dialogue with the pictorial genre of landscape. Somonte subverts tradition, transforming the landscape from a mere backdrop or idyllic subject into an arena of psychic and formal collision. The scene, which appears to be a waterfall's bend or an exuberant natural setting, is charged with a strange narrative tension through the central male figure, dressed in a classic-cut suit of magenta or burgundy, whose composure contrasts sharply with the surrounding pictorial chaos. The brushwork, dense and energetic, particularly in the rendering of the water, breaks the illusion of depth to assert its materiality, generating a confrontation between detailed figuration and abstract gesture. This approach not only modernizes the landscape but uses it as a fragmented mirror of contemporary experience, oscillating between the sublime and the surreal.

The influence of Neo Rauch in this piece is undeniable, manifesting in several key aspects of the composition and atmosphere. Like Rauch, Somonte operates with a deliberately enigmatic and disjointed narrative logic, juxtaposing disparate figurative elements that seem extracted from different eras or dreams. The theatrical lighting and the use of saturated and unexpected colors (such as the suit and the patterned fabrics accompanying the figure) reinforce this atmosphere of controlled unreality. However, where Rauch often uses cryptic figures in industrial or Soviet-era utopian settings, Somonte anchors his mystery in a wild and primal natural environment. This mixture of the hyperreal with the dreamlike and the temporal disjunction positions the work in a direct line of descent from the New Leipzig Figuration, yet with its own sensitivity that explores individual identity in the face of nature's overwhelming force.

Executed in oil on canvas and boasting imposing dimensions of 280 x 150 cm, this large-format work transcends mere illustration to become an object of dense pictorial reflection. The tension between the static figure and the violent irruption of an abstract and luminous form (the intense blue jet of water that looks like a beam of light or a digital distortion) establishes a formal conflict that drives the meaning. Somonte's art here positions itself as a critique of representation, challenging the viewer to reconcile the formal beauty of the painting with the disquiet of the scene. This canvas is a testament to how the artist uses the classic tools of oil painting to explore the psychological fragmentation and visual saturation of modern life, making the landscape a place not of refuge, but of a disturbing encounter with the inexplicable.

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