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About the Artworks
The surfaces of Joachim Raabs' pictures and objects are strewn with salt, salt fragments, splinters of rock crystal, crystallised quartz and once, a piece of amber.
He mixes brine with pigments and transparent and /or lacquer, and works on the pieces in a sloping position, sprinkling the surface with water (like rain) from a flower-sprayer to simulate a natural "floating" or dispersion of the materials applied afterwards. As the wet salt dries out the colour underneath is revealed and the surface generates blossoms of salt, discolours and sometimes the salt re-crystallises. It is a very slow and time consuming process, dependent on the working environment - in terms of temperature, humidity of atmosphere etc. - for the end result. I think of this process as 'Erosion' which in Latin means erode/corrode (from erosio).
The titles and subject matter of his pictures/objects move around notions like Landscape, discovered/unexplored regions and the physical manifestation of it. The paintings depict spaces from which the Human presence is absent, and suggest images and yearnings for an unknown, (primeval?) Landscape, lost to Human Civilisation, returned to Nature, and waiting to be rediscovered (perhaps only possible in Art).
jr "Under the surface of my work the salt is waiting as a representative of all Natures' processes in which all Human Beings, its Work, and Art too is enclosed"