Eberhard Bitter | Zwischen (Between)
March 2 - 25, 2023
Solo exhibition
How to approach a feeling that cannot be put into words? How to express something for which there are no words? How to say what is inarticulable? Can language express emotions? Eberhard Bitter has decided for himself. He speaks through his pictures – more comprehensibly than language ever could. The force of the emotions hits us immediately, directly and genuinely. His pictures literally scream at us to enter into a dialogue with them.
Eberhard Bitter’s subject focuses on the whole spectrum of interpersonal relationships. His art is a sometimes unsparing analysis of human interactions with others and, above all, with oneself, one’s own feelings, experiences and dreams. Figurative body shapes, in tension-filled interplay with one another. The protagonists, moving, “dancing” figures, completely detached from space and time, are reduced to themselves and absorbed in the contemplation of the moment. It is not the outside that is of any importance. A pulsating energy emanates from the processes that can be anticipated, one moment of which finds expression in his paintings. Bitter’s art is not a classical representation, but pure communication with the viewer, who is addressed by the pictures and invited to reflect.
Bitter says of himself: “It’s simply that the interpersonal theme, that is, the theme of human beings with all their joys and conflicts associated with them, the approaches and separations, moves me personally the most.”
That is what his art is all about: it provokes a reaction in the viewer precisely because it is about ourselves. This is sometimes “hard fare”, as he himself puts it. What brings people closer together, and what pulls people apart? Bitter’s way of painting also expresses these issues: in the close-up view, what has been depicted blurs into an almost abstract image. The wild juxtaposition of the coloured areas is confusing and seemingly unstructured. Only from a distance does the picture take shape. Approaching, moving away. The viewer is invited to interact with the picture in every conceivable way.
Grey, white and red are the often predominant colours and give the figures the appearance of anatomical studies of human bodies. In fact, the colours once again reflect an emotional state in which there is rarely an either-or. Rather, shades, nuances, everything is entwined.
Event
March 2, 2023, Begin: 19:45 (Admission from 19:00)
The art performance that accompanies this exhibition also makes it clear: everything is related, and nothing exists on its own. Music finds expression in physical movement. The body dances feelings and is captured in the artistic representation. The overwhelming intensity of the drawing in turn breaks through in the musical performance. The dialogue between music, dance, and art is constantly present, always different, but still there.
For the trio performance, we have managed to engage Alessandro Giaquinto – the semi-soloist of the Stuttgart Ballet – who will dance to the improvised contemporary atonal music of saxophonist Andreas Krennerich. The movement sequences will be drawn live by Eberhard Bitter.
Exhibiting Artist
Eberhard Bitter
Eberhard Bitter was born in 1960 in the Ruhr region of North Rhine-Westphalia and initially trained as a bookbinder.
From 1981 to 1987, Bitter studied painting at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts with Prof. Pitt Moog and Prof. Hartmut Böhm. It is perhaps exemplary that Bitter initially began his studies in the field of graphic design, but then quite consciously decided on the Fine Arts during his studies. This uncompromising determination characterises his artworks today. Since 2008, Bitter has had two teaching assignments for ‘Freehand Drawing’ and ‘Fundamentals of Design’ at the Bochum University of Applied Sciences, FB-Architecture – a task that fulfils him greatly. Bitter has been a member of the West German Artists’ Association since 2010.
