Can Henne: E Paintings

"My passion is to raise awareness that there is much more than meets the eye.  There is an incredible power within color and form, not only to entertain us, but to lift our emotions and moods, but there is this amazing ability to transfer information.  In fact, that's what's going all the time.  We may not even be aware of it, but that's what's happening." - Can Henne

Can is a diverse artist, responsible for creating digital works, paintings, installations, video art, and sculptures.  He is also the director of the Pink Gallery in Berlin.  For a number of years, Can has been experimenting with photography and painting.  Originally, Can had intended this artwork to include photo cutouts and color.  This artwork has evolved into what he calls his E Paintings.  Can thinks of his computer monitor as a canvas, using the photo cutouts as he originally intended but using digital means to paint in the same piece of art.  He also scans real paint into some of his E Paintings.

Each of the E Paintings is very abstract in nature.  There are innumerable layers to each work, all with a different opacity so some aspects of the E Painting are obvious, where others have to be focused on for a long time in order to see what is truly there.  Each E Painting is filled with vivid colors that draw the eyes, distinctive shapes standing out in each one.  His E Painting, "Finally Arrived", viewable in section 11 was especially interesting to me just because this title is more ambiguous than the rest.  It left me with the question of "Where have I arrived?", as it seems Can's E Paintings are meant to appeal in different ways to a variety of people.

The "Finally" in the title implies wherever one is arriving has been desired for some time.  In the E Painting, one is able to view stars and moon, appealing to those with a scientific background.  In the bottom left hand corner, I see a city and I think of the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz.  Just above the city, I see a faint image of Tree, which would appeal to those who believe in God or have a strong religious background.  Perhaps the faintest image in the entire E Painting that I see is a house, the peak of it visible in the sky.  This E Painting could be of finally arriving home, reaching success in another form, or dying.  I believe the colors in "Finally Arrived" are meant to draw upon emotions, red and yellow being emphasized perhaps to evoke a sense of hope, joy, or love.  Perhaps the mixture of the familiar and grounded and abstract and foreign is meant to draw upon a human beings mixed/contrasting feelings towards death, or finally arriving.

The ambiguous nature of his E Paintings is what I think truly makes them strong.  All of them are strongly distorted in one way or another, allowing for anyone who views them to pick up on select parts of the E Painting of which to identify.  His use of distinct colors and shapes, and how they intermingle, has the capability to leave the viewer with a certain emotion.  One may not even be able to describe what she feels when viewing each E Paintings, but Can definitely achieves his goal (as cited in the first quote).  The viewer is able to feel something towards each painting and cannot deny that there are multiple level to the experience which may not always be interpreted.