Tim Eitel

Tim Eitel



I don't often come across artists with whom I think I have a significant amount in common. My interest in German artist Tim Eitel began with a photograph of the artist standing next to one of his paintings, installed in a gallery. The painting was about 8x10 inches, on a chunky stretcher, meticulously painted, and pictorial in nature-- at first glance it could have been one of my paintings.

Eitel's paintings typically depict figures in landscapes or generic public architectural spaces, and mundane contemporary stuff like dumpsters and trash, pigeons, trailers, beds (sometimes on their own, and sometimes as props in figurative paintings). He paints in oil on canvas, blending the paint to create smooth, atmospheric paintings, which are sometimes very large scale, sometimes very small. The images are quite realistic, but often with some flatly painted blank areas. Looking at a screen of google image result thumbnails, the palette is noticeably subdued-- grays dominate.

The artist says that he is "mainly trying to turn [his] attention to life in our time." He believes our world view is made up of a "reservoir of images" (from art history, photography, film, TV, newspapers), which for him can be condensed into archetypal images that he then seeks out in the world and paints. I can't quite see from his work what these archetypal images, or their significance, might be, but I do respond to his choice of images-- they seem true to my experience of the world. Even more, I respond to the series of photos taken by the artist as a sort of sketchbook-- I use photography (and found photos from media) similarly in my own work, and am also drawn to bland and common images from our world, especially depicting the artificial and man-made in nature. The artist acknowledges that he is interested in the unnatural in nature-- how even when he's out in nature, he feels like he's in some sort of controlled recreation zone. His paintings seem critical of that artificiality-- particularly the ones with figures, who seem alienated from their surroundings. In my own work, I don't feel negatively about the artificiality of the environment, but instead see it as full of evidence of our unique human brain that wants to transform, adapt, problem solve, discover through science, etc.

The space in Eitel's paintings is interesting, and something I could see stealing-- he often avoids having a horizon or distant space through foggy environments, or using wall-like spaces (black or gray) to simply end the foreground.


On the whole, I don't care for his figurative paintings. The figures seem very still and unnatural (appropriately to his concept)-- for me they are unpleasant and creepy.