SF-Dot-Series No. 1-9

Christian Rothenhagen a.k.a. deerBLN
Marker, Indian Ink and Spraypaint on Carton
18“ x 22“ framed
$580 each

For his mixed media drawings - done with fineliner, pencil, marker, varnish, epoxy resin casting, his graphics, or his painted murals - Rothenhagen selects street views, backyards, facades and firewalls of Berlin buildings/ streets, corners in the city with which he associates certain life events. For the time being, he captures them photographically, before he transforms them into drawings, graphics or paintings in his studio.

Rothenhagen wants to capture the time of urban space and thus immortalize it in his works. His city excerpts, his view of certain corners, such as "urban windows", are depicted without living creatures, cars, trees… for the architecture, the cityscape itself is the actual subject and should not be degraded as a background. Architectural and urban infrastructure elements such as power poles, cables, signs or traffic lights are usually incorporated graphically as concise shadow images. Street signs without names do not allow for an unambiguous allocation of places; they appear anonymous and yet strangely familiar. His pictures, often arranged as series, are partly reminiscent of black-and-white city photography, with personal perspectives, zooms and image details, which, through the choice of his mostly bi-chrome color palette - such as warm grey and brown tones, determined by the background of cardboard or old paper…, or tones such as plaster paints - are reminiscent of walls and weathering. Usually the sky is a free space in the picture and gives the elements space to breathe and thus creates depth. His works are like sensual perceptions of quiet, abandoned urban spaces. He creates quasi-urban silent poetic still lifes that radiate tranquillity and softness, and deals very playfully with the sometimes repetitive motifs, thus constantly creating new perspectives and new symbols of various sections. Whether past, still existing or fictitious, one does not know as a viewer, but the artist has his own story to tell for each picture.