"Such a Thing"

The small painting, the miniature, is the distance of the memory of an origin, of which the framework has been forgotten. The fit, so to speak, has slipped from memory, and what is left are small fillings as single fragments of "such a thing", which makes commentary and meaning impossible, because the adjectives (surroundings, background, the place, the self) have escaped. Such features (the expression is suitable for haiku: drawing a light incision in time) result in what has been called "show without commentary", if an attempt were made to describe what the whole work consists of.

The mountain miniatures that I have painted since 1999 in oil on wooden panels are gilded on the side, and the large formats on cotton canvas that later evolved from them relate to the mountain landscape of my home in Lower Engadine. Landscape appropriated from photos through photography, focusing on the relationship between cloud, light and horizon: it is not a place that is described in this kind of painting - or if it is, then it is precisely because it is not there - but rather a kind of observation.

Yet because painting is always connected to places, because it is unimaginable without space, I invent visible signs of presence using the means of photography. Some examples of this are "Borrowed Places", 2001, published in book form by Christoph Merian Verlag Basel, or "Devoted to a Landscape" in collaboration with ISABELLABRANCOLINI ARTECONTEMPORANEA, 2002, realized in Florence.

Leta Peer 2002