Biography & Statement

Fernand Roda studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Prof. Joseph Beuys, and was appointed ‘Meisterschüler' in 1975. With ‘Bëscher’ Valerius Gallery presents their first exhibition with Fernand Roda — focusing on his most recent works. In an abstract way the artist explores the subject of nature in all its facets. Roda’s works are characterized by a distorting effect, painted with pigment and oil in energetic colours, captivating the viewer.

Roda’s paintings seem to be moving with rhythm, repeating seemingly naturalistic content or composing abstract forms into compelling visual motifs that captivate the observer. Art which embodies authenticity, in which one cycle follows the next. His works are exciting, since they do not traverse beaten paths; instead the works in their entirety reveal a process, a growth, and a moving forward in painting.

Roda’s field of research is a well-defined canvas as a carrier of form; his working method is highly disciplined and controlled. Various layers of paint are placed on top of each other. Sketches and studies in oil pastel or pencil form the preliminary stages of his paintings, but he does not paint what he sees outside in nature, he stays in the studio to paint his sketches. According to an interview with Roda in 1995, his works show “an abstract thought with cycle and composition forming the painting’s result, despite their more figurative beginning.” Roda works with pigment and oil paint, their colour and form providing the painter’s experimental starting point. Twisted, condensed layers of colour determine the composition with their distorting effects.

For Roda, painting is essentially an act of self-questioning, with memory, fantasy and imagination providing the guidelines. At the same time, the process is linked to the theme of painting and serves the painter as an examination of painting itself. “The ability to doubt the sole reality of what is given and to contrast it with other realities – imagination – reveals the effectiveness of the Apollonian instinct”. It is not about attempting to come as close as possible to nature as a real gestalt or aiming to paint in order to emulate a model or template, but rather about painting as an act of self-assessment. Drawing upon nature on the one hand, and investigating the act of painting on the other hand. Art as a model of thought is a theme that Beuys also seized, Roda’s teacher once stating that: “The principles of art are the principles of spirit.”

“[…] talking about nature also means talking about the painting process, resulting in a conflict between what one sees and what is real.” The point is not to transfer reality onto a canvas. His intention is “not to paint what one perceives, but how one perceives.” The paintings concentrate on the fundamental, avoiding details of unessential side shows, and dismantle the “concrete objectivity of nature into manifestations”. Roda gathers his pictorial elements from the outdoors, choosing the birch trunks, the green-glowing ferns (sometimes like blazing flames, sometimes embedded in earthy brown), the water lilies, the autumn impressions, the rectangular hay bales and arranging them in serial bundles, detached from their initial context.

Roda's work is present in several museum collections, such as the Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum Mühlheim a.d. Ruhr, Villa Vauban – Musée d’Art de la Ville de Luxembourg, Musée d’Histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg / Lëtzebuerg City Museum and the Museo del Novecento, Milan amongst others.

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