Rainer Fetting

Rainer Fetting portrays the close contact of the surfer from Venice Beach, Los Angeles to the elemental power of the sea. His pictures show a dramatic and turbulent sea where the tiny surfer is tossed back and forth. In doing so, he revitalises and radicalises traditional seascapes showing people in the most intimated and direct confrontation with the power of nature. Rainer Fetting, however, also concentrates on the single, sovereign surfer who conquers the elements and turns the vehemence of the surf into an aesthetic event. The Berlin painter expresses this phenomenon by making an aesthetic event of the waves. He rhythmically places clear and simple brush strokes next to each other. This abstraction makes reference to the act of painting itself and makes a close comparison of the art of surfing with the art of painting. Just as the surfer uses the natural power of the waves and reacts to their dynamism, the painter reacts to the currents, eddies, and splashes of paint in the intense process of painting.