USA / UTAH – They were distant worlds, which Frank Rödel found in the USA,
in Utah and Colorado, in the land of canyons and arks, of a
stony ancient landscape, which, according to geologists, was
formed, in the absence of man, by wind and water over the
last 10 million years, a time span far in excess of anything man
might be able to imagine. Here, a natural physiognomy of
unimaginably fantastic dimensions was formed. Gigantic stone
bridges arch over dry river beds, in which layers of sediment
testify to the former water flows, the bands of stone shimmer in
glowing colours, constantly and magically transformed by the
sunlight according to the time of day. Here and there, solitary
shrubs cling to meagre deposits of earth in a crevice, carried
there by the wind, whilst forests of stone pillars rise up, endless
scree slopes and innumerable huge arches like gigantic
entrances to nothingness. A stone genesis, hardened abruptly
by a shaping force which remained invisible.
It is no wonder that, faced with this primeval world, a painter
feels that he is standing at the zero point of creation, where all
emotion which is anti-civilisation ceases, for every cultural remark,
every fashionable posture becomes unusable here, it remains
tiny and meaningless in the face of nature in this dramatic form:
a gigantic play of colour and form in the constantly changing
light of day, a theatrum mundi of captivating brilliance. In his
pictures, Frank Rödel has tried to capture something of this; yet,
for him, it was not about the brilliance of this spectacle of nature.
In their colour, his gouaches tend towards the shades of the
stones, worn down and gnawed at by erosion. The range is from
sandy yellow to warm golden brown to russet, depending on
how the light falls upon the geological layers. Above all, he was
fascinated by the fantastic tectonics, the strange shapes, simply,
that which in painting is called “picturesque”. He trod the path
of the artist, who with his heightened sensitivity comes face to
face with nature and about whom Rudolf Borchardt wrote: “The
world finds its place in him, while he opens up in the world. He
is history´s old wanderer, Earth´s visitor”. The artist in the scientific
age is, between enthusiasm and analysis, overwhelmed and,
at the same time, forced into sober observation; in the face of
a dwindling nature, he is today more a witness of the times than
ever before. This landscape in the middle of the American
continent demonstrates to us one thing in particular: the
immorality of nature.
Curt Grützmacher, 1999