Interview with Micha Patiniott

Image: Falling - 2020, oil on canvas, 49 x 58 cm

ArtDependence (AD): How would you describe your work ?

Micha Patiniott (MP): My paintings are based on a playful and associative way of looking at everyday events. Rooted in personal experience and imagination, objects, body parts, people, and animals are made to act in ways that do not occur in reality. Trivial situations easily get out of hand and lead to poetic, bizarre or humorous images.

I like to tilt the image by adding what is for just a second an association to the subject. Through simple manipulations, the subjects are given a charge that makes them into something else; they suggest multiple meanings, or even a way of looking at reality.

Bic Inkwell - 2020, oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm

Recurring visual motifs are inanimate objects or materials, flora and fauna that has been anthropomorphized and displayed in a social construct or human context. These objects are often related to the act of making art itself: pencils and brushes, ink and paint, an empty canvas or paper, musical instruments. The result is a scene that might resonate with the viewer in multiple psychological ways. The paintings are not fixed stories: they do not confirm images, they create images together with the viewer.

AD: All your works have an extra layer, can we describe the extra layer as humor ?

MP: Humor definitely plays an important role. My work typically contains incongruities, where different frames of reference are set up for a collision. Sudden shifts in perspectives can lead to a sense of surprise and amusement, of wonder even. So I think the moments where the understanding of the image shifts to a different reading, is where the humor part comes into play. I am interested in this kind of open-endedness.

Swan II - 2019, oil on canvas, 90 x 66,5 cm

AD: How do you spend your time in this Corona period, and do you think it will affect your future work?  Do you get anything positive out of this?

MP: I think that like a lot of other artists, I am quite accustomed to working isolated in my studio. In that sense, it is almost business as usual. I spend most of my days working on paintings in my studio in Amsterdam. But with no openings at the galleries, going out and meeting other artists only happens when you explicitly meet up one on one. So I do feel more subjected to my own private painting world at this time.

The Fugue II - oil on paper on canvas, 76 x 56.5 cm

On the positive side, this means having an extra focus and concentration on the work. This might ring true for a lot of other artists as well. I can imagine a lot of excellent work coming out of all these studios everywhere soon. Let's hope that by then there still is an artworld infrastructure to show and support the work.

AD: What are your future plans, exhibitions etc?

MP: It is probably just a coincidence, but my new works are getting more sparse - sometimes paintings of just a place, without figures or objects, slightly suggesting a space where action might take place. I am currently working towards a show with Cinnnamon gallery at their new space in Rotterdam, which will be my second exhibition with this gallery - dates will be announced soon.

Falling - 2020, oil on canvas, 49 x 58 cm

Micha Patiniott’s solo exhibitions include the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Anna Zorina Gallery in New York, Galerie Sturm in Nuremberg and Cinnnamon gallery in Rotterdam. He has received multiple grants and fellowships, including the Louise Bourgeois Fellowship and the Mondriaan Foundation Stipendium for Established Artist.

Just Being is Bewildering - oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm

In 2010 the artist monography 'Curiously Human’ was published. He is a Rijksakademie alumni, receiving a two year residency in 2006 & 2007 (Amsterdam).