ONE MAN SHOWS
WORKS
IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
NATURE WATERCOLORS PROJECTS
SELECTED CATALOGUES
VARIOUS
PUBLICATIONS
MARIO REIS
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Much
of the two last decades I have spent extracting hydrodynamic self portraits of
rivers from all over the world. I call them Nature Watercolors.
To achieve this, I take a wooden frame over which is stretched an untreated
cotton cloth and installs it upside down in the flowing water. The device is
fixed in place with only a string in order to allow movement and flotation of
the frame which then dances on and in the water. Having carefully placed the
frame, I leave it alone with the river that is now working on it.
As time passes, the sediment and pigments that are characteristic of the river
settle on the cloth and give the painting its particular texture, light, and
composition.
Seeing the complete process, it is apparent that a site-specific work of art is
created by the interaction of me and the river. The fluid nature of water is
the tool, while the river and the sediment are the watercolor medium. The river
thus becomes both object and subject in my paintings, as a pattern of life is
built up on the cotton cloth.
Each Nature Watercolor is a unique specimen, that it is shaped by time and
space. In spite of the my rigid procedure, it is impossible for me to create
one work that is identical to another. As redundant as my working method may
seem, it is a permanent process which is subject nonetheless to the passage of
time. Patterns of permanence and time become clear by grouping several Nature
Watercolors in rows on the wall in a gridlike arrangement. This grid is crucial
to the way I visualize the pictorial qualities of the work as a whole. I set up
relationships between individual Nature Watercolors, making decisions
concerning locations, correspondences, tonal shadings, movements, and
contrasts.
The resulting composition of light and dark areas creates spatial effects that
express gradual movement. Space and movement, the starting point and basic
condition of my artistic concept, are recreated by the arrangement of works
within the grid.
But soon a new theme comes into play. Since the creative process carried out by
the river is complete, traces of its flow are now fixed on the cotton cloth -
transformed into a new state of consistency.
Time seems to stand still. We no longer perceive the water's movement. Instead
earth, transported by the river, has settled on the cotton cloth. This element
of earth embodies permanence as a central theme, in addition to that of space
and movement. The very world of painting, after all, establishes a certain
eternity against time.
Within this definition, the Nature Watercolors allow us to experience the
phenomenon of time as either a time flow, imagining the process of creation, or
as a still frame, making visible a fixed period of time. Often the Nature
Watercolors provide a glimpse into the distant past, since some sediment on the
cotton cloth is more than thousands of years old.
In this sense, the Nature Watercolors reveal themselves as the river's memory -
as tracks of time.
Mario Reis
Mario Reis
EDUCATION
1978-79
Master Student of Prof. Günther Uecker
1975-78
State Academy of the Arts, Düsseldorf, Germany
AWARDS
1972 Award, City of Gelsenkirchen (D)
1976
Scholarship to Cité International des Arts, Paris (F)
1978
Scholarship of the Federal State NRW, Germany to Casa Baldi (I)
1979
Award, State Academy of the Arts, Düsseldorf (D)
1979
DAAD-Scholarship, Paris (F)
1981
Art Award, City of Gelsenkirchen (D)
1982
Barkenhoff-Scholarship (D)
1990
Silver-Prize, Osaka Triennale, Osaka (J)
1995
Gelsenkirchen-Stiftung, Gelsenkirchen (D)
1996
Suntory Prize, Osaka (J)