Ralf Altrieth (1966) - Sans titre

Ralf Altrieth (Heilbronn, 1966).

Gesso and Chinese ink on 2.5 mm thick cardboard, untitled, 2022

80 x 60 cm (ready to hang)

SOLD by: Recodier Art - agent, France

DOCUMENTATION :

A dated and signed certificate of authenticity is included.

DESCRIPTION :

Signed on the back 'Ralf Altrieth' with a black felt-tip pen.

This painting in black ink and gesso on heavy cardboard unfolds in a stark contrast between the saturated black of the background and the white forms that emerge with restraint. The surface is entirely inhabited by a constellation of hybrid figures: faces, animals, indefinable silhouettes, all caught in a dense, non-hierarchical tangle.

Shapes seem to float, collide, and respond to one another. Multiple gazes appear and then disappear, jaws open, fragmented bodies, suspended gestures. The drawing is direct, incisive, almost primitive, but with great rhythmic precision. The absence of color sharpens the graphic tension: everything rests on the line, the cut, and the balance between positive and negative space.

The whole thing gives the impression of a mental space in constant agitation, both playful and unsettling, where the figures are never fully stabilized. This work functions as a field of presences, a theater of appearances where the viewer’s imagination is continually engaged.

Ralf Altrieth (born in 1966 in Heilbronn, Germany) is a German painter and musician living in France since 2006. He has been expressing himself for more than thirty years through a plural artistic practice, which includes painting, drawing, linocut, installations, sculpture and photography, as well as contemporary music and jazz.

Very early drawn to the visual arts, he takes private lessons with painter Georg Schaible at the age of 14, before joining the Nürtingen Academy of Fine Arts from 1987 to 1989. In parallel, he discovers and practices the saxophone and jazz from the age of 20.

The career of Ralf Altrieth is defined by total artistic freedom: from his early days he has claimed an autonomy of creation that is expressed through a wide diversity of media and artistic languages.

He has lived and worked in several European cities — including Berlin, Freiburg, Erlangen, Paris and Venice — before settling permanently in the south of France, where he develops his practice.

Ralf Altrieth has exhibited in numerous galleries and cultural venues in France and abroad, including the Hartmut Beck Gallery in Erlangen, MAC Paris, the Galerie Théo de Seine in Paris, Galerie N5 in Montpellier, the Château d’Assas, and other art spaces. His works are in private collections in Europe and beyond.

In addition to his visual practice, he is the co-founder of the music label Meta Records and has collaborated with many musicians, often incorporating music as a source of inspiration into his visual work.

His work is frequently described as living at the intersection of gestural expressionism, neo-expressionism, and lyrical abstraction, where line and color function as a form of writing that explores movement, spontaneity, and intuitive narration.