OTTO PLACHT: Calligraphy of Jungle

25 Jun – 10 Aug 2012

“In serigraphy I find an adequate technique for reproduction of automatic drawing. I am inspired by tropical vegetation and its immortal growth. The lines of the artwork extend into the infinity of an imaginary space, in which
I transform natural forms into a resemblance of plant calligraphy.
The matrixes for the exhibited screen prints originate in the Amazon jungles,
in direct contact with the energy of the rainforest. I observe the principles
of growth and models of creation, in which spiritual beings and the face of
a hidden reality imprint themselves. Each time I discover a new dimension
and significance, flowing from the dynamics of the life force of the jungle within a labyrinth of human knowledge. I orient myself by repeating the themeand align myself with the spirit and wisdom of mother nature.”

Otto Placht (born 1962) works in an improvised studio in a former aircraft hangar on the banks of the Yarinacocha lake, where he combines native and modern artistic traditions. His painting is a story within a language of images. At AVU he began as an expressive painter, and belongs to the generation
of the 1980s. During that period he participated in confrontations of exhibitions and was a protagonist of the struggle for wildness in painting. From his Central European roots he draws his relationship towards symbolism, mystical decadence, surrealistic expression and new figural painting. In 1993 he visited Peru for the first time. Here he discovered a new creative energy, and later also a personal vindication of the direction he had chosen. He consciously experiments with the limits of cognition, which he extends in the spirit of the traditional rituals of the Amazon shamans, and absorbs the magical energy of the jungle, as well as the myths and traditions within the time of family life in a native community of Indians of the Shipibo tribe.