Christopher Engel
As Max Beckmann said: “Space, and space again, is the infinite deity which surrounds us and in which we are ourselves contained.”
Over the years my work has ranged from landscape to social-political to abstract-landscape and to purely abstract.
Throughout my artistic life and work my interest has been with spatial concerns. Even as a landscape painter in the 70’s I was deeply affected by the relationship of the elements of the landscape, trees, shrubs, flowers, bushes, elements on the periphery and near and far everything worked to define the space that contained and moved me.
These are the same things that informed my abstract paintings which I see as meditations on space.
As with Max Beckman, the space around us to me is the defining characteristic that makes us aware and allows us to function in our environment. Creating this feeling of space in my abstract work with color, texture, line, scale, scraping, dripping etc. is what satisfies my aesthetic needs.