Dirk von Burgsdorff’s intuitive and processual engagement with the medium of painting is a recurring element in his artistic oeuvre. It is evident both in the technical realisation and in the thematic orientation of the artworks. Starting from a fragmentary charcoal drawing, which the artist initially transfers to canvas, animal- and human-like hybrid creatures – which thematically and iconographically show allegorical references to primeval myths and heroic sagas – come to life in the further painterly process.
Burgsdorff’s stylistics, consisting of a muted colour palette, mixed and mythical creatures and references to German philosophical and literary history, give rise to a strongly associative pictorial world that blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality. His paintings make concrete reference to allegorical and mythological sagas and transform the animal- and human-like creatures into new contexts, so that the viewer’s perception constantly oscillates between a recognition of the familiar and its alienation.
The mixed creatures – human-like in their basic form – by the painter Dirk von Burgsdorff testify to a poetic pictorial ethos reminiscent of Walter Benjamin’s multi-layered reflections and mental images on Angelus Novus.
Although there is no conscious engagement by the artist with mythology and mythical creatures, these references are unmistakable in the aesthetics and style of his actors, who fill the pictorial space with black contours. The repeated use of signal colours, such as red, green, blue and black, creates a subtle balance between good and evil, optimism and pessimism, and love and hate in his works.
Likewise, the titles of the paintings, such as Icarus Endgame and Gesellschaftsspiel, among others – which the artist deliberately chooses after completing the work – point to an allegorical potential. The grotesque figures and mixed creatures, composed of human and animal attributes and springing from a mental impulse of the artist, coexist peacefully with each other in the pictorial space and testify to an earthly coexistence. The repeated use of the figures or individual elements is not a conscious decision by Burgsdorff, but rather a result of his artistic and intuitive creative process.
Through the artistic collaboration of Dirk von Burgsdorff and the photographer Horst Gatscher, so-called PhotoPaintings have been created since 2011 – a neologism that can be traced back to the original meaning of the word photography (“to paint with light”).
In their collective works, the artist duo increasingly dissolves the boundary between painting and photography and consciously combines the documentary character of the imaging method with the creative potential of painting. As equal components, the painterly and photographic products are combined with each other, inspiring and complementing each other and not allowing any differentiation between the media.
The creative process of the PhotoPaintings, which results from the equal collaboration of the artists, is documented photographically. The subjective expressiveness of the photographer is expressed in the choice of motif, the point of view and angle of lighting, the detail and the associated “placement” of the pictorial elements and their hierarchy, which are in turn emphasised by differentiated focus. The photographs are therefore not adapted to the aesthetic ideas of painting, but complement painting in its artistic form of expression.