Untitled 2019

Curator: This drawing from 2019, aptly titled "Untitled" by Thomas Riesner, showcases a frenetic energy with its mixed-media approach. What's your immediate take? Editor: Visceral, almost alarming. The rawness of the lines and the stark contrast of colours – reds, blacks, and blues – evokes a sense of chaos, or perhaps contained frenzy. Curator: Precisely. The composition is compelling; notice how the artist uses line to construct seemingly figural forms that simultaneously coalesce and disintegrate before our eyes. It walks the line between representation and total abstraction. Editor: These "figures" seem to carry heavy symbolic weight. The oversized eyes, for instance, could be interpreted as symbols of intense observation, perhaps even paranoia or anxiety. The overall impression is of a primal scream rendered in visual form. They remind me of some folkloric representations of demons, always watching. Curator: Intriguing. I'm more focused on the materiality itself – the direct application of the mixed-media onto the surface. Consider how the density of the lines creates areas of tonal weight, influencing how our eye navigates the composition. It seems reminiscent of Abstract Expressionism's dedication to pure gesture. Editor: But doesn't the work borrow also from graffiti art's urgent, spontaneous expression? There's a palpable sense of immediacy in Riesner’s strokes; a desire to capture raw emotion unfiltered. Like a cave painting, raw in feeling, perhaps depicting communal fears. Curator: Yes, there's definitely an element of that unfiltered, immediate mark-making process at play here. Note how the negative space activates the forms, granting a feeling of instability. The high contrast contributes greatly to the aesthetic, too. Editor: For me, that instability feels deeply connected to the themes of psychological turmoil and alienation present within many cultural stories and mythologies. It makes me wonder about what stories, what universal anxieties this seemingly abstract collection of lines, actually embodies. Curator: I concede to your perspective, the interplay between line, form, and color gives rise to those feelings. However, my focus is more how this specific combination produces the emotion. Editor: Art's capacity to act as a carrier for collective anxieties and the most fundamental symbolic forms never fails to fascinate. Curator: Indeed, observing the interaction of those components and considering their impact on the whole grants the drawing its power.