Ralf Altrieth (1966) - Petit Bois N°38

Ralf Altrieth (Heilbronn, 1966).

Painting on wood, 'Petit Bois No. 38', 2011

20 x 20 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', in pencil.
I marked 'RA11' with paint on the front.

This small painting on wood presents a frontal figure, almost a face, built up by layering colors and swift gestures. Two large circular eyes dominate the composition and immediately seize the gaze, giving the whole a direct, almost unsettling presence.

The surface of the wood remains visible in places and participates fully in the work: it brings warmth and a rough texture that dialog with the flat areas of blue, pink, ochre, yellow, and green. The black and white lines help structure the image while revealing areas of erasure, reworking, and overlap.

The face seems at once to be built up and to fall apart before our eyes. The lines cross, hesitate, spill over, as if the figure were caught in an unstable moment, between emergence and transformation. Nothing is fixed: everything remains open, in motion.

With its intimate format and wooden support, this work conveys a special closeness. It invites slow reading, attentive to details, to the traces of the gesture and to the vibrations of color, offering a discreet yet intensely expressive presence.

RALF ALTRIETH (born 1966 in Heilbronn, Germany) is a German painter and musician who has been based in France since 2006. For more than thirty years he has expressed himself through a plural artistic practice, which includes painting, drawing, linocut printmaking, 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.