Lena Rot is a colorist – colour is the most important element of which her small works are composed. Her supports – often found pieces of ‘pseudo’-wood, parts of cupboards, mirrors or mass-produced paintings, are often merely primed with a ground – a background. These are such a beautiful colour, and the brushstrokes are so playful, in spite of their monochrome quality, that the images added by Rot are very time-consuming and labour-intensive. But this is the work’s essence. The spontaneous additions work superbly against the heavy background.
Although colour is the basis of Lena Rot’s work, the form, or what the form refers to in a minimal way, nonetheless contributes appreciably to the works’ significance. A single oval form refers directly to portraiture, while horizontal lines are suggestive of a landscape. With comical little touches like the bow tie, decorative shapes that she paints around the ovals, or sometimes the mere addition of stripes or arches, she plays on this tradition of painting and makes it contemporary.
Lena Rot searches for weight through colour, she adds weight through the forms of classical painting, and with her spontaneous brushstrokes and strange additions, she nonetheless succeeds in making her work playful, topical, and as light as air.
Lena Rot (1979, Charkov, Ukraine) lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany, where she graduated from Düsseldorf Academy of Art this year, under the supervision of Professor Herbert Brandl.