Rükenfigur (Ski Path)

The edition has sold out but we have a printer's proof and an artist's proof available.

Rükenfigur, a German term that is used to describe a figure(s) seen from behind by the viewer with a landscape beyond them and especially applied to Caspar David Friedrich, was conjured up by an amalgam of experiences skiing in North America and Europe. As a late comer to this existential madness of repeatedly going up a mountain only to come down it, I have, as an artist, become fascinated by both the semi-industrialised landscapes of the ski resort where pylons litter the landscape and rather discombobulated by the parodies of fashion that people wear while keeping out the cold and the wind. This nylon fashion show in queues and on gondolas receding into the distance as well as on ribbons of people careering down a ski slope creates a great artificiality of colour within the whiteness of the hillside. There is so much going on! The ski lifts offer a perfect device of cutting into the picture plane and my vantage point behind the figures on this rickety seat in front of me while looking both up to the far horizon and down to the skiers below creates a wonderful push and pull of the drama around me. - TH