VISION OF A VISION

Emma Stern: This summer, you’ve been painting new works, 7 of which will be exhibited in September in Madrid. I want to talk with you today about these paintings. They remind me of something I experienced with an almost lost film by Robert Bresson. The film is:

“Four nights of a dreamer,” France 1971, 87 minutes, colour.

I had never seen the film, or maybe once decades ago, in a late-night Bresson festival in Cologne. I didn’t remember it, but I obsessively searched for it since, after all, it’s the only Bresson film I didn’t know. It’s no longer screened anywhere, and it’s not available on DVD either. At one point, I convinced myself that I would never get to see this film. So, I started fantasizing and tried to imagine it in its entirety. The images I had in my mind at that time were very similar to your paintings here. They also featured these strange stiff people, who look like puppets, standing in ominous rooms in unclear relationships with one another. What kind of figures are these, and what is happening in these paintings?

Lothar Hempel: Strange… “Four nights of a dreamer” and I’ll show 7 images, making it a complete week. This is not intentional, but it’s interesting nonetheless. These paintings are quite narrative, so it fits with the temporal aspect. That predominance of narrative irritates me, and I’ve always tried to work against it, but recently it was simply stronger. It undoubtedly has to do with the many films I continuously watch. There’s one painting  and it’s a whole story:

“Auf der Flucht” (On the run), 2024, 55 x 60 cm, oil and acrylic paint on aluminium.

I see a mother and her son fleeing through a thorny forest. The son wears an officer’s uniform that seems to be from Eastern Europe and somewhat archaic, almost like armour. Perhaps he is the heir to the throne, a prince, maybe it’s a scene shortly after a revolution, in an intermediate period, sometime before World War II. The two are pursued by insurgents and are fleeing toward the border. The danger is palpable and you can already hear the barking of the bloodhounds, having caught their scent. While the mother (Melancholy) recedes further and further into the background, still a part of the already lost past, the prince, with his weapon drawn, truly blooms in adversity. Here is where his story begins, a new chapter, a new future.

ES: This is epic, dramatic. Like the beginning of a melodramatic film, and it also has a mythical quality, a legend, an ethnogenesis… but it also sounds like dream interpretation.

LH: These ideas emerge while painting and then become reality. At the beginning, I know absolutely nothing about my figures. And later, something emerges that has meaning, something that moves me and that I can follow through. This is how an image is born, and these images are self-sufficient, they have a life of their own. There’s also this painting:

“Fruit Market”, 2024, 72 x 44 cm, oil and acrylic paint on aluminium.

This one here is in a completely different place, on a tropical island to be precise, possibly in Guadeloupe. It’s set about 300 years ago in a port city. There’s a young woman carrying a fruit basket on her head, heading to the market square to sell her goods. She is approached by a stranger, and she doesn’t quite know whether she likes it. This may be the first work in which I depict someone at work…

ES: Before World War II and 300 years ago! You use time very generously! Are there also paintings that deal with the “here and now”?

LH: Each painting has to do with the present. Right now, we find ourselves at a threshold, and it’s not clear which direction we should take. I feel that currently many, like me, taking a deep look into the past to realize where we come from and who we were, in order to know again who we want to be. This exhibition is also about visions…

ES: Are these people in your paintings, or rather positions, ideas, actors?

LH: These figures are sometimes based on photos I take of people on the street. Or photos taken from books or computer screens. Some are friends, others are strangers, and some are fictional. That’s why it’s hard to differentiate, but in principle, a person in a painting always represents an idea. There are also many moment-people here. Expression-people. A third painting is:

“Snowball”, 2024, 80 x 90 cm, oil and acrylic paint on aluminium.

In the background, you can see a medieval town with a tower and a stone bridge. In the front, there’s a group of 3 figures, and in the way they’re standing there, so strangely aligned, it looks like a silent film. I can almost hear the organ music from off-stage. On the left, in a robe, there’s an artist shaping this grotesque sculpture in the centre, which has something of a mummy. The figure on the right is inspired by a photo I took in Japan and she is holding a snowball. Why a snowball? Behind the group, there’s the silhouette of a bull. The painting resonates with sacrifice and ritual, but it can’t really be interpreted. The meaning remains open, and that’s how I want it.

ES: Here’s another work:

“In einem fernen Land” (In a Far Land), 2024, 55 x 60 cm, oil and acrylic paint on aluminium.

Are these two taking an oath? And with the flag in the background, it has something official about it! Anyway, the two seem anything but official and civilized, they look more like people from the South Seas, like people of nature.

LH: It’s a very intimate moment, part of a complicated love story within a historical context. We are witnessing a key scene, and the two are clearly real humans, that is wild. That’s clearly recognizable. And that is very good.

ES: Such paintings can only be made if you’ve seen many films. It is as if your eyes were projectors and your canvas a movie screen. Somehow you are a monster… (laughs!)

LH: Painting, music, photography, cinema are incestuously connected. A horrible family, but fruitful. My paintings are permeable and communicate with each other. This creates unpredictable effects and possibly even something akin to insight. And by that, I mean liberation! Of course, a lot of monstrosity is also generated… And this work here:

“Tropicalia”, 2024, 190 x 130 cm, oil and acrylic paint on aluminium.

This is a film about Mexico in the 1950s. There are 3 people in front of a landlord’s terrace. They’re actors, artists and drifters. They want to make some money by offering their art. It’s quite possible they also want to steal something. There is an Aztec sculpture, a coin, and a bird. The proportions are altered to emphazise class differences. In the background, a red mountain is visible. It’s like a play within a play. Mise en Abyme. This is the beginning of something. A door opens to an area behind the stage, but the door is only painted.

ES: You accidentally said: MOVIE! And this painting:

“Vision einer Vision” (Vision of a Vision), 2024, dimensions unknown, oil and acrylic paint on aluminium.

The woman in the middle is in a trance and is soon going to rise from the ground and levitate in the air. She wants to become a symbol! The man to her right is her companion, who is trying to keep her grounded for the moment. He remains fairly calm, though in reality, he’s worried because he has already seen too much. This scene also takes place in a tropical location, as can be seen from the giant plants. Everything takes place in a tropical, completely saturated environment.

LH: And then this work:

“Vor 10.000 Jahren” (10,000 Years Ago), 2024, 90 x 80 cm, oil and acrylic paint on aluminium.**

This takes place long before our time, where shapes blend into one another and a great deal seems possible. On the right, a stone statue awakens from a long sleep (death) and discovers the advantages of being alive. “I don’t want to be stone again!” it thinks. The woman on the left, on the other hand, only thinks about standing out as much as possible. She wants to be fully recognized and understood. She wants to be read like a book. She’s a living sign. The entire painting is full of sound.

ES: The whole exhibition is full of sounds.

LH: All these works are about the night. I love the night. Painting is deeply connected with the night and with animals. The eyes of cats illuminate the night. People sing to overcome fear. Suddenly a light. So we come full circle and visions bloom.