Information-Overload
Transformations
Made from 2002 to 2004
The abundance of information in our society forms the starting point for this series. I work in layers: after each painted layer I record the image digitally and continue to edit it, allowing compositional decisions to be refined and emphasized. This method builds on my earlier experiments with mixed techniques, but here I consider digital processing as an integral part of the painting process. Transparency and construction allow the layered emergence of the work to remain visibly present.
Materials: oil on canvas
2020 - Paintings.zip
This work, produced in nine variations, shows a clamp gripping its contents: a painting cut into 10 × 10 cm fragments and pressed tightly between its jaws. In the images beside this text, the clamps are shown first, followed by a photo of the paintings in their original state.
The inspiration comes from the icon of the shareware program WinZip for Microsoft Windows — the small clamp that once symbolized digital compression. In Paintings.zip, that icon has been brought to life. Just as digital files are compressed into something smaller and temporarily inaccessible, this painting too is literally reduced to a compact package. The digital logic of storage and transfer takes on a physical form.
The title playfully refers to that digital world. Of course, there is no traditional way to “compress” paintings, but the act of pressing them together raises questions: what remains of an image, of meaning, of value once it has been packed away?
The painting can only be viewed again by loosening the clamp and reconstructing the fragments. That act transforms the work from tension and closure to openness and space — a reversal of digital compression, in which the original momentarily comes back to life.
Paintings.zip explores the boundary between material and digital image. It plays with the tension between tangibility and virtuality: the painting exists both as a physical object and as a digital file. Where does the “real” painting reside — in paint, in pixels, or in the act of seeing itself?
The work also raises questions about identity and value. Is a painting that has been cut up and compressed still the same work? Or does this intervention turn it into a new object, a conceptual sculpture — a kind of ready-made in the spirit of Marcel Duchamp? And more broadly: does this compression not also mirror the workings of the art market itself — where expression, uniqueness, and meaning are continually compressed into economic categories, where millions shift from account to account with a single click?
In this way, Paintings.zip becomes both a playful and critical reflection on our relationship with images, technology, and value. The painting has not disappeared, only changed state — a compressed memory waiting to be unpacked.
During exhibitions or presentations of the work, a QR code can be created allowing visitors to scan and view the painting contained within.
2025 – Stretcher Bars and Eyelets
For the paintings still in my possession, the stretcher bars were removed. Eyelets were attached around the canvas.
2025 – Scoring with Goals
The canvas MT.4.8 from the project Melting Targets was combined with two earlier works: Shooting Apples for Dogfoot (2004) and Warning Bullet (2003). The three canvases were sewn together and share the same theme: the goal. From now on, the work can be viewed on both sides.
2025 – Tropical Observation
The canvas Tropical Observation served as a source of inspiration on the drawing board of the project Drawing in Motion. On the canvas, both a dolphin and a view through binoculars can be seen. These elements were taken up again and reworked on the drawing board. The white edges of the original canvas were given a pink color.