Nina Nolte – An Insight of Paradise

Nina Nolte – An Insight of Paradise

Mario Virgilio Montañez

The work of Nina Nolte is, strange as it may seem, utopian. She portraits a universe prior to the expulsion of Paradise, with clothes and attidudes strictly contemporary, just like the masters of Renaissance and Baroque, who painted characters from the mythologie or the Bible with garments and gestures of their time. We find in Nina´s work a inalienable will based on two principles: figuration - censured so many times and even considered finished - and contemporanity. But at the same time never losing sight of her edenic vision of mankind. Looking at her canvas and in spite of the discredit of painting in general, in favour of more recent and less conventional artistic techniques, no one could ever think that the subject has a dark side. Furthermore, that innocence does not translate into candour, but serenity, dignity, like in the wonderful portraits with a trait that owes as much to Ingrès as tu Dürer. That is to say, in the awareness of the prime of life and in the promises of the moment.

Lets go to do an excercise of fiction: imagine Eve on the first day of her life, lets see her walk towards the Tree of Good and Evill. In her hands not the fateful apple, but a brush or a pencil. Around the tree – dangerous but with sweet fruits – we see marigolds agitated by the joyous flight of the bees. And Nina will paint them, as if it was the portrait of a duke of the Quattrocento, but with pure and vibrant colours. And then, “God saw that it was all good”, continuing with the genesis style, Eve will go to her partner, under a brilliant sun and she will also paint him. This is exactly how any spectator can have access to Nina Nolte´s painting., a unique key to enter her paradise of perfect purity.

In debt as she to her german heritage, there is a rigour directly inherited from the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), of which it takes a preference for the definition of shapes, fot its exactitude, but without the bitter elements, sometimes even sour of this movement. We could even say that Nina Nolte submerges the paintings of the New Objectivity in the californian swimming pools, flooded wit the comforting sun reflections of David Hockney. Examples of this concept are the canvases entitled Cherubini, but it can also be applied to her great format portraits. The result is astonishing: a reality that declines the hyperrealist´small details, but that represents the prime of the bodies, the spotless dignity, the simple elegance, the essentiality of flesh, the celebration of the moment. This eternal instant: when there is a sparkle in the glasses and the bottles stop as if they were acquitted of being emptied.

Everything, in this world of vertigo and bustle, is to be grateful for. As if her canvases redeemed us from our mistakes and faults. Becouse painting is an image stopped in time, and it opens – when it´s a work of quality – a window to eternity, to a fixed and still time. In the case of Nina Nolte, this is eternity, it is understood as motionless and timeless – something that quite remarkable in her paintings. She offers us flowers and people, landscapes and plants, animals and models posing proud or relaxed, and always confident. This way, Nina makes of every motif, of every subject a hypnotic piece, enhanced by the natural coloured backgrounds that create chromatic effects inside the best pop painting. Thus, each one of her canvases becomes a votif painting, an icon sacredly lay, an opportunity to discover the beauty that rests, stealthy, in every object, in every person, without renouncing to the psychological depth that we can find in pop artists such as Alex Katz.

As Lucrecio said, there are teardrops in things (sunt lacrymae rerum), and that vision is what we can apply, without going off the german tradition, to the expressionism. On the other hand, a high contemporary poet from Málaga, Rafael Inglada, asked us “to serve together with the arrows, the birds”. And precisely, this is what Nina does, she offers us the birds, but alive and dazzling, before the shot of the arrow. Like in the portrait of the hen Emma, that over the backdrop of the sunset flaunts a presence that more than poultry will correspond to a dragon. Between misfortune and celebration, Nina opts for feasting the senses, the exaltation of life and the presence of beauty. As if it was in the Garden Eden. We are before an innocent look focused on the innocent before the snake started to slide quietly on the grass, a grass in which the first footsteps are those of Nina Nolte.

Nina Nolte is represented by PUNZMANN GALLERY: www.punzmann-gallery.com, Tel 952 787 787.

Juan Béjar - Poisoned Sweets

Juan Béjar’s Poisoned Sweets

Annelette Hamming

English translation: Peter J. Field

Transparent, nearly always swollen little faces with generous double chins. Dark eyes that show little or no emotion. Self-satisfied little mouths; ringlets; perfect outfits. Such are the children’s portraits by the Spanish painter, Juan Béjar (1946). But they are not real portraits; not replicas of real people but metaphors.

Béjar, just like Pablo Picasso, was born in Málaga; but whereas Picasso moved to Paris at an early age never to return, Béjar is to this day a man of Málaga. He is a highly-reputed artist in his country of birth. In Spain there is a waiting-list for his work, which makes Béjar proud but at the same time stressed. His production is limited on account of the immense amount of work put into each painting.

His “children” nearly always look straight to the front, unmoved. They appear to be staring at us, and at the same time their gaze transfixes us. At times they seem to be inexpressive, staring dolls; their ageing heads are far from infantile. They stand rigid and static or sit with their little legs before them, attired in elegant outfits like adults in miniature. They bring to mind the Infanta Margarita of “Las Meninas” (1656) by the famous Spanish painter, Velázquez.

It is curious that Béjar’s children should have blond, almost golden hair like the young Margarita ... a technical detail by which the painter obtains a full contrast of loveliness. If you draw close to the painting you see in the hair Celtic or Moorish motifs that intensify its vividness.

But there is more. At the same time these figures have a certain kinship with the female dwarf to the right of Margarita. At the Spanish court these “dwarfs” were very popular. They were adopted as curiosities. The “jester” appearance of Béjar’s figures is accentuated by a multitude of little bows and decorations. These external adornments are of a perfection that contrasts with their bearers’ lack of emotion. Although they have toys such as a hoop, a skipping-rope or a building-box, they give no sign of knowing how to use them. Play requires fantasy, spontaneity, creativity.

Their rigidity arouses compassion. (We all know how rebellious a stubborn child can be.) Some of them have an air of sadness in their eyes. Mostly they are arrogant, mocking or defiant. These Spanish “children” are spine-chilling!

After a while alone with these paintings in the studio I need to get out and away from their lost gazes. Are they demanding something of me or scolding me for some reason?

In no way are they happy children. Innocence forms no part of their lives. They do protest, because they ask concrete things (like children they are young and innocent). These paintings fascinate. Their maddening and magic elements confuse us. Juan Béjar describes his work as “poisoned sweets”; at first glance they attract, but whoever tries them soon realizes their real nature.

This 62-year-old painter is a modest, extremely pleasant person. In the peace of his small studio he works unresting on his marvellous creations, which he defines as a Spanish version of magical realism blended with a touch of naïvety.

Béjar is obsessed with detail. He pays the closest attention to a tiny pearl ear-ring, a little bow, a satin ribbon around a chubby little waist, a small lace-frill around the neck or the wrinkles on the brows of dogs or cats. With the same dedication to detail he executes the background of the painting; at times a garden, architecture or a landscape. In recent years his landscapes have become more and more plastic, rather in the manner of an impressionist.

His work is very elaborate; it seems aged, as if worn by time. Layer upon layer in “faded” earth-tones, flecked with clear or intense accents. Symmetry plays an important rôle in his compositions. It is his way of expressing order, since under the semblance of tranquillity there springs passion.

We perceive the muffled resonance of Luchino Visconti’s films, in which moral decadence and the class-struggle is repeated, often against a backdrop of social criticism. The word that prevails when we see his work is, “decadence”, according to the dictionary: “very refined and devoid of expressive force”. It is a sensation that is valid for many of Béjar’s figures.

When we closely observe certain details they seem to create a symbolism. Our forebears – particularly those of the 17th century – were taught to recognize and interpret these references, which often have a moralizing nature. Early-ripening cherries in a small hand are cherries that from ancient times announce springtime and are also “celestial”: in heaven it is always springtime. In the art of painting the cherry is known as “the fruit of paradise” and symbolizes a sure reward for a virtuous life.

In his paintings orange-trees appear very often; for Spaniards they have for centuries symbolized luck and satisfaction (at weddings orange-blossom is an important component of the bride’s bouquet). What is more, the orange-tree symbolizes the tree of good and evil. It is a persistent element in the symbols that Béjar repeats and that often have a double meaning. Thus the frog symbolizes both wealth and long life and worldly pleasures and even sin; and winged creatures which at first glance seem to be butterflies but on closer examination turn out to be wasps (symbols of evil thoughts and feelings). A dog symbolizes loyalty (but may bite), a cat is associated with the moon and may symbolize both wickedness and fertility.

A child has a bird attached to a string; in days gone by a relatively common practice when caring for it as a domestic animal or playmate, but nowadays quite unthinkable and unacceptable; or it is a bird flying away, symbolizing the soul departing the body bound for heaven, but it is restrained to prevent escape (tied to the Earth). Virtually the child is toying with death.

In the background of an apparently innocent portrait there may suddenly appear a snake slithering in a tree or a distant house that is almost certainly haunted. It is the magical element, the fable, that gives Béjar’s paintings an intriguing atmosphere and the feeling that something is about to happen.

The sources of light produce a surrealist sensation. The light that illuminates a person falls differently from moonlight, which illuminates the whole scene and throws strange shadows. The shadows have a life of their own. The more you observe, the greater the alienation.

In this world, which at first sight appears absolutely safe and convincing, Juan Béjar asks questions of himself. He creates doubts and confusion where silence seems to rebel. It is a complicated but fascinating world that provokes concern and disquiet. His paintings represent a mournful tribute to the private life of his subjects, sweet and poisoned at the same time. Which is as if the artist were trying to recover what is lost, like Marcel Proust in “À la recherche du temps perdu”, where the main character talks of his life and memories: his parents and love but also snobbery in fin-de-siècle French society. Béjar’s memories are not always personal either; at times they are memories of a bygone Spain. The Spain of the feudal system with a rigid Catholic hierarchy and frequent contradictions that continue to this day. Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) in his famous “Don Quijote de la Mancha” (1605) describes the life of a noble knight and his fat, lazy squire, symbolizing idealism as opposed to materialism Béjar’s children show us similar contradictions. His children, aristocrats, are the “disinherited” of history, excluded and eliminated. With their pale, almost transparent faces they bare to us the state of their souls. Their lovely clothes are but tinsel, like the emperor’s new clothes: when all is said and done they are naked figures, although they seem unaware of it. It may seem comical, but reflects tragedy, bitterness and sadness.

The desire to get away from these penetrating paintings goes hand in hand with the sorrow of parting from them. It is hard to leave them behind. And you will never entirely forget them. The apparent tranquillity they irradiate cannot be detached from a feeling of disquiet and alienation. The contradictions are linked to an undefined environment; a world in which significance is sought; a world in which each person comes face to face with his own forms of anguish.

Nina Nolte . Una Mirada sobre el Edén

UNA MIRADA SOBRE EL EDÉN

La obra de Nina Nolte, aunque no lo parezca, es utópica. Ella nos trae un mundo previo al de la expulsión del Paraíso con vestimentas y actitudes estrictamente contemporáneas, del mismo modo en que los Maestros del Renacimiento y del Barroco hacían figurar con ropajes y ademanes de la época a personajes extraídos de la Mitología o de la Biblia. Hay, entonces, en Nina, una voluntad irrenunciable a dos principios: la figuración, tantas veces denostada y hasta dada por definitivamente muerta, y la contemporaneidad. Pero sin perder de vista, nunca, esa visión edénica de la Humanidad. Viendo sus pinturas, y pese al descrédito que ha caído sobre la Pintura en detrimento de las más recientes y menos convencionales técnicas artísticas, nunca se podrá presumir que la persona retratada tiene un reverso oscuro. Más aún, esa inocencia nunca perdida no se traduce en candor, sino en serenidad, en dignidad, como en los maravillosos retratos con un dibujo que debe tanto a Ingres como a Durero. Es decir, en la conciencia de la plenitud de la vida y en las promesas del instante.

Hagamos un ejercicio de ficción: imaginemos a Eva ese primer día de su vida, veámosla camino del árbol del Bien y del Mal. Y en sus manos no pongamos la manzana fatídica, sino un pincel o un lápiz. Alrededor del árbol peligroso, pero de frutos tan dulces, habrá caléndulas alborotadas por el vuelo gozoso de abejas. Y Nina las retratará, como si se tratara del semblante de un duque del Quattrocento pero con colores puros y vibrantes. Y después, viendo que efectivamente era bueno, por no desprendernos del todo del estilo del Génesis, se acercará a su compañero, bajo un sol radiante, y también lo pintará. Así es justamente cómo cualquier espectador puede tener acceso a la pintura de Nina Nolte, una llave propia para entrar en su paraíso de pureza perfecta.

Sin embargo, deudora como es de una tradición propia, la alemana, hay un rigor que hereda directamente de la Neue Sachlichkeit, conocida entre nosotros como Nueva Objetividad, de la que toma la preferencia por la definición de las formas, por su exactitud, pero sin el componente amargo, y hasta agrio, presente en ese movimiento. Podríamos decir, incluso, que Nina Nolte sumerge las pinturas de la Nueva Objetividad en las piscinas californianas, hendidas de reconfortantes reflejos del sol, de David Hockney. Un ejemplo de esta concepción son los dos lienzos titulados Cherubini, pero también se puede aplicar a sus retratos de grandes dimensiones. El resultado será, y es, sorprendente: una realidad que renuncia a las minucias hiperrealistas pero que alcanza a representar la plenitud de los cuerpos, la dignidad impoluta, la elegancia sencilla, la esencialidad de la carne, la celebración del instante. Ese instante eterno en que brillan las copas y las botellas, detenidas de manera que parecen absueltas de tener que vaciarse.

Todo ello resulta, en un mundo de vértigo y ajetreo, muy de agradecer. Como si estos cuadros nos redimieran de nuestros errores y culpas. La pintura, al ser imagen detenida en el tiempo, propicia, cuando se trata de obras de calidad, momentos en que nos es dado asomarnos a la eternidad, a un tiempo fijo y sin fuga. En el caso de Nina Nolte, esa eternidad, entendida como atemporalidad inmóvil, es notoria. Ella nos entrega flores y personas, paisajes y plantas, animales y modelos posando altaneros o reposados. Y siempre confiados. De este modo Nina hace de cada motivo, de cada tema, una pieza hipnótica, realzada por los fondos neutros de color que producen efectos cromáticos dentro de la mejor pintura pop. Así, cada cuadro suyo se convierte en una pintura votiva, en un icono sagradamente laico, una oportunidad para descubrir la belleza que anida, sigilosa, en cada objeto, en cada persona, sin llegar a la renuncia en el ahondamiento psicológico que se puede dar, por mencionar un pintor pop, Alex Katz.

Decía Lucrecio que había lágrimas en las cosas (sunt lachrymae rerum), y esa óptica es la que puede adjudicarse, sin apartarnos de la tradición germánica, en el expresionismo. A cambio, otro alto poeta, malagueño y actual, Rafael Inglada, pedía que sirvamos junto a las flechas, los pájaros. Y justamente esto es lo que hace Nina, ofrecernos los pájaros, pero los pájaros vivos y relumbrantes, antes del disparo de la saeta, como en el retrato de la gallina Emma que sobre el fondo de un anochecer incierto ostenta una prestancia que más que a un ave de corral correspondería a un dragón. Entre la desdicha y la celebración, Nina opta por el festín de los sentidos, por la exaltación de la vida y la presencia de la belleza. Como debiera haber sido en el jardín del Edén. Estamos ante la mirada inocente enfocada sobre la inocencia antes de que la serpiente comenzase su deslizamiento silencioso sobre la hierba. Una hierba en la que las primeras huellas son las Nina Nolte.

Nina Nolte - Ein Blick in den Garten Eden

Ein Blick in den Garten Eden

Mario Virgilio Montañez – Fundación Picasso

Die Arbeiten von Nina Nolte sind, auch wenn es zunaechst verblüfft, utopisch. Sie stellen, in heutigen Kleidern und Gesten - also konsequent zeitgenössisch - die Welt vor der Vertreibung aus dem Paradies dar. So wie Maler der Renaissance und des Barock mythologische und biblische Szenen in ihre Gegenwart versetzten, sie in damaligen, also zeitgenössischen, Gewändern und damaliger, also zeitgenössischer, Umgebung darstellten.

Bei Nina Nolte sieht man zwei unwiderrufliche Prizipien: Das der Gegenständlichkeit - oft geschmäht und für tot erklärt - und das der Contemporanität. Dies jedoch, ohne jemals die paradiesische Vision aus den Augen zu verlieren. Betrachtet man ihre Bilder trotz der Verleumdung, die der Malerei auf Kosten der neueren, weniger konventionellen Techniken widerfuhr, wird man sich die dargestellte Person schwer vor einem dunklen Hintergrund vorstellen können. Aber diese niemals verlorene Unschuld ist nicht Naivität, sondern Gelassenheit und Würde, so wie in ihren Portraits, die zeichnerisch ebenso Ingres wie Dürer verpflichtet sind, d.h. der Fülle des Lebens und den Versprechungen des Augenblicks.

Üben wir unsere Vorstellung: Stellen wir uns Eva vor, soeben erschaffen, auf dem Weg zum Baum der Erkenntnis, dem Baum des Guten und des Schlechten. Doch statt des unseligen Apfels hält sie einen Pinsel in ihrer Hand. Um den gefährlichen Baum, mit den süssen Früchten, wachsen, von Bienen umschwärmt, Ringelblumen, die Nina in reinen, leuchtenden Farben malt, als wären sie ein Herzog des Quattrocento. Und dann, als sie sah, dass es gut war – um uns nicht zu sehr dem Stile der Schöpfungsgeschichte zu entfremden – wendet sie sich ihren Mitmenschen zu, um auch diese zu malen. So kann der Betrachter Zugang zu den Bildern Nina Noltes, einen eigenen Schlüssel zu ihrem Paradies der perfekten Reinheit erlangen.

Aber, Erbin einer Tradition, nämlich der deutschen, gibt es eine von der Neuen Sachlichkeit übernommene Striktheit, eine Vorliebe zur klarer Definition der Form, zur Genauigkeit, aber ohne jene spröde Verbitterung, die dieser Bewegung gelegentlich anhaftet. Ja man könnte sogar soweit gehen, dass Nina Nolte die Neue Sachlichkeit mit den, von kraftstrotzenden Sonnenstrahlen aufgefächerten Swimmingpools des David Hockney vereint. Beispiele dieser Konzeption sind beide von ihr als “Cherubini”, also Puten, betitulierten und kürzlich in New York an einen Sammler verkauften Arbeiten, ebenso wie ihre grossformatigen Portraits. Das überraschende Resultat ist eine Wirklichkeit, die auf minutiöse Hyperrealismen verzichtet und doch die Mannigfaltigkeit des Körpers, seine reine Würde und Eleganz und die Verherrlichung des Augenblickes darstellt, diesen ewigen Augenblick, voller funkelnder und klingender Gläser und Flaschen, dergestalt festgehalten, dass Flaschen und Gläser befreit scheinen, je geleert zu werden.

In einer Welt des Rausches und der Hetze ist das mehr als erfreulich. So, als würden uns diese Bilder von unseren Fehlern und unserer Schuld erlösen. Die Malerei - als das in der Zeit festgehaltene Bild – versöhnt - sofern es sich um gute Arbeiten handelt – Augenblicke, die uns gegeben wurden, um uns an der Ewigkeit zu ergötzen, mit der gnadenlos voranschreitenden Zeit. Im Falle von Nina Nolte ist diese Ewigkeit, diese bewegungslose Zeitlosigkeit, offenkundig. Sie zeigt uns Blumen und Menschen, Landschaften und Pflanzen, Tiere und Modelle, alle stolz und ruhend. Es ist dies der Stoff, aus dem sie etwas Hypnotisierendes schafft, erhöht durch den neutralen, farbigen Hintergrund, der jene chromatischen Effekte in der Malerei des Pop bewirkt. Und so wird aus jeder ihrer Arbeiten ein Votivbild, eine auf heiligste Art säkularisierte Ikone, eine Möglichkeit, Schönheit, die in jedem Gegenstand, jedem Menschen verborgen sein kann, hervorzubringen ohne zu verneinen oder abgründig zu sein, wie zum Beispiel bei Alex Katz, um einen Pop-Art-Maler zu nennen.

Lukrez sagte, dass Tränen in allen Dingen sind (sunt lachrimae rerum). Das ist, um uns nicht aus der deutschen Tradition wegzubewegen, auch der Blickwinkel des Expressionismus. Der zeitgenössische Dichter Rafael Inglada aus Malaga hingegen sagt: man möge doch zu den Pfeilen auch die Vögel servieren. Und dies ist genau das, was Nina Nolte tut. Sie bietet uns die Vögel an; die lebenden, lärmenden, fliegenden Vögel, kurz bevor der Bogen abgeschossen wird, wie das Portrait ihrer Henne Emma, die vor einem Hintergrunde einbrechender Nacht eine Präsenz zeigt, die mehr die eines Drachens ist als die eines Haustiers. Zwischen Verdammen und Euphorie wählt Nina das Fest der Sinne, die Lobpreisung des Lebens und die Allgegenwärtigkeit der Schönheit; so, wie es im Garten Eden gewesen sein könnte. Es ist der unschuldige Blick auf die Unschuld, bevor sich die Schlange leise durch das Gras schlängelt, durch eben dieses Gras jener Wiese, auf der Nina Nolte die ersten Fusspuren hinterliess.