Against forgetfulness.

To the work of Dirk Otto

Life accelerates continuously, impressions become briefer and memories more transient. Those who experience intensively with all their senses, those who take their time for things and people, those who still are able to sense and to record different moods, live more intensively and will always be close to the essential. Dirk Otto is one of them. He works unspectacularly and rather quietly, without any trendy attitude but, instead, with a mischievous and profound understanding for pictures. Dirk Otto is drawing and painting, thus combining contouring lines with layers of colour. While the first represents observations the second is the joyful expression of the inspiring act of painting as well as the pleasure to give form to ideas. Both manners join together in the work of Otto - they cannot be separated and do not obey any principle not related to the picture or the moment. In fact, they are closely connected with the picture's developing process. They stimulate the artist in getting to the heart of the theme and they help him to reach out to each of its directions.

Dirk Otto's special painting ability lies in the use of darksome colours that keep away from any loudness but rather achieve a harmonious arrangement of the picture's whole in relation to the chosen theme. Even if the style of his work is clearly abstract he is indebted to reality. His pictures and drawings stay "legible" and it is still possible to understand both the context and the evolution of each picture. His intended contents and forming processes describe landscape, life drawing, history and memories. The painted and drawn metamorphosises on the marble pieces of the boat from Mahdia form a major part of his latest work. As all of Otto®s expressive approaches they are his personal contribution to the eternal question of tradition and innovation, past and continuous progression. The painter Dirk Otto is setting an artist®s compositional and sensible signs against forgetfulness.