In contrast to other contemporary artists who depict disasters in a nightmarish or hallucinatory way, R.J. Kirsch, the Cologne painter takes a more documentary approach to the subject. Since 2002 and taking an overall view he has been painting accidents and crashes involving planes, ships and cars. He regards his art as been in the tradition of "paintings of historical events". He usually finds material for his work in current media reports and from countless images of accidents which can be found ready-made on the screen. His paintings seem to converge together and thereby invoking an atmosphere of a virtual simultaniety of events. In his present series, "Collisions", parts of his work merges onto a different level thereby creating an autonomous space.


Rhythm of Statistic

In view of the explosive development of electronic visual media, for the Cologne artist R.J.Kirsch the analysis of electronic media became an artistic survival strategy . In his works he reacts directly to the acceleration and availability of images in our electronic age, placing the materiality and directness of his oil sketches in opposition to our virtual world. Kirsch, a pupil of Franz Dank at the „Werkschulen“ in Cologne and of Al Hansen at his legendary „Ultimate Academy“, seeks the connection between object, action and image. In 1999 at the Städtische Galerie Albstadt, he creates a virtual world between painting and media in „Phantom”, which combines video projections, works on paper and light boxes. „Rhythm of Statistics” deals with all kinds of traffic accidents. This sequence, started in 2002, is based on samples found through image services of the world wide web. He uses the specific character of painting in reaction to a reality, that seems to fall apart in front of our very eyes - not only figuratively, but literally too. In his own words, the act of painting can be defined as a „clearing-up process”. By personally choosing from the different sampled images, the painter arrives at the scene of the accident where he has no choice but to view and sort out the debris so as to create something resembling order in the composition of his paintings. In the deconstruction of accidents, vehicles become protagonists of a real abstraction which then just has to be taken. Thus, each sketch appears to be part of an aesthetic recovery from a wrecked and a destructive reality. Mobility and the use of vehicles as a means to discovering the world are of central significance in his work. Accidents are of special importance in his analysis as they emblematically stand for the limitedness and fragility of our existence.