Work - Micha Patiniott

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Touch I, oil on canvas, 65 x 40 cm, 2024

Micha Patiniott creates atmospheric, lyrical minimalist paintings of everyday objects and processes in flux, blurring the boundaries between the mundane, the profane, the cosmic, and the mystical. Close-up subjects, such as a blank sheet of paper, the pulse of intimate body parts, the curving of a mathematical object, or the ambiguity of a turning portrait, are transformed into sensuous otherworldliness.

Patiniott was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam during 2006-2007 and at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown during 2008-2009 and 2023-2024. International solo and group exhibitions include the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam; PuntWG (Amsterdam); Cinnamon (Rotterdam); Heden (Den Haag); WHATSPACE (Tilburg); MKgalerie (Rotterdam/Berlin); Galerie Sturm (Nuremberg); Dordrechts Museum; Whitechapel Gallery (London); Arti et Amicitiae (Amsterdam); Museum Hilversum; the Provincetown Art Association and Museum; Provinciehuis Noord-Holland (Haarlem); and Anna Zorina Gallery (New York).

Peak I, oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm, 2024

Vellum series

The ‘Vellum’ series seeks to meditate on time, memory, and ephemerality, as it explores themes of potentiality, flux, presence and absence, through the representation of an ordinary, often overlooked object — a piece of folded paper, inviting viewers to consider form, texture, and the interplay of shadow and light in what might otherwise be a mundane context. A folded piece of paper can be seen as a moment captured in time — before it becomes a written letter, a paper plane, a piece of origami, or before it is unfolded to reveal its contents. The papers mostly seem void - the relatively unblemished, empty quality of the paper can be seen as a metaphor for both pure potential, as well as absorption into silence. What can they contain?

Different aspects of repetition - sameness and difference - unfold when moving back and forth between the individual pieces of the series, through the interplay of light and shadow, the textural evolution from wear and tear, the diverse materiality and corporeality of the papers, their hues, the patterns of folds and unfolds, along with the curling or fraying of edges. These details highlight the narrative of time’s passage and the fleeting nature of the paper, suggesting a deeper reflection on the temporary and potential-filled aspects of life and history. What is repeated? Why and how do we repeat things? How does history repeat itself? When something is repeated, does something get lost, or erased?

Vellum IV (Yellow Thermal Paper), Vellum VI, Vellum VII / Rapture I, Vellum V (after a Trompe l’Oeil of an Etching by Ferdinand Bol, c. 1675); installation at Provincetown Art Association and Museum, 2024

Vellum VIII, 45 x 40 cm, oil on canvas, 2023

Vellum XXII (Body of Work - after 'The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio, 1603), 45 x 40 cm, oil on canvas, 2024

Vellum XXI (Loud Shirt), 45 x 40 cm, oil on canvas, 2024

Vellum X, 45 x 40 cm, oil on canvas, 2024

Vellum VI, 45 x 40 cm, oil on canvas, 2023

Vellum XXIII - Caesura, 45 x 40 cm, oil on canvas, 2024

Vellum V (after a Trompe l’Oeil of an Etching by Ferdinand Bol, c. 1675), 45 x 40 cm, oil on canvas, 2023

Vellum VII (Rapture I), 45 x 38 cm, oil on canvas, 2023

Vellum XI (Princess X by Constantin Brâncuși, 1916), 45 x 38 cm, oil on canvas, 2024

Vellum I, oil on canvas, 45 x 35 cm, 2023

Vellum IX, oil on canvas, 45 x 38 cm, 2024

Vellum X, Vellum IX, Vellum XI (Princess X by Constantin Brâncuși, 1916), Vellum XIII, 2024

Vellum XII (Analemma), oil on canvas, 45 x 40 cm, 2024

Turning Portraits series

The Turning Portraits explores the intricate connection between time, change, and fluid identity. Within a colored, ethereal space, portraits are subtly tilted. As the position of the face stays similar between the works, facial features, colors, and materiality change, suggesting a transcendence of temporal boundaries and life's various phases.

Echoes of artistic fragments from history, like El Greco's elongated figures, Botticelli's fluid fusion of gender, and Breitner's misty gray atmospheres, reverberate within these works.

The Turning II, The Turning I, The Turning V, The Turning III; installation, 2022 / 2023

The Turning II, oil on canvas, 38 x 64 cm, 2022

The Turning I, oil on canvas, 38 x 64 cm, 2022

The Turning V, oil on canvas, 38 x 64 cm, 2023

The Turning III, oil on canvas, 38 x 64 cm, 2023

The Turning IV, oil on canvas, 38 x 64 cm, 2023

Celestial Bodies: Rapture

While the explicit is inherently intended to be visible, there is a mystery about this act of revelation; in exploring the most intimate and bodily aspects of ourselves and others, there exists a paradoxical element of the unknown that seems to transcend the corporal.

It is in this ambiguous space that the Celestial Bodies series: Rapture, Throb, Portals, Pulse takes form, as it explores abstract and intangible aspects of physical representation and considers how the explicit and profane can connect to transformation and the spiritual.

Rapture I, Rapture III; installation 2024

Rapture III, oil on canvas, 105 x 65 cm, 2023

Rapture VII, oil on canvas, 105 x 65 cm, 2024

Rapture IV, oil on canvas, 65 x 40 cm, 2023

Rapture VIII, Rapture I, Rapture VII; installation 2024

Celestial Bodies: Klein Bottle

The Klein Bottle paintings show the sensuous curves of a mathematical object. Simultaneously abstract and luscious, they depict a shimmering hollow glass vessel that appears to intertwine with itself. Both holding and reflecting light, merging the inner with the outer, evoking the fragility of a bubble and the mystery of a cosmic object.

A Klein bottle is a three-dimensional, vase-shaped mathematical figure that, like a three-dimensional Möbius strip, twists into itself — a paradox, since we naturally expect a surface to have two aspects: a front and a back, or an inside and an outside. It is brought as a metaphor for a perpetual cycle of change, infinitely self-sustaining and self-referential.

Klein Bottle IV, oil on canvas, 105 x 60 cm, 2024

Klein Bottle III, oil on canvas, 40 x 45 cm, 2023

Klein Bottle I, oil on canvas, 55 x 40 cm, 2023

Klein Bottle II, oil on canvas, 45 x 35 cm, 2023

Klein Bottle (The Kiss), risograph on hand-painted paper, 43 x 28 cm, edition of 10, 2024

Portal II, oil on canvas, 40 x 45 cm, 2022

Portal I, oil on canvas, 40 x 45 cm, 2021

Klein Bottle IV, Analemma II; installation 2024

Celestial Bodies: Analemma

An analemma captures the figure-eight trajectory traced by the Sun or Moon in the sky, as seen from a fixed location on Earth across various dates within a year. In the Analemma paintings, this lemniscate pattern morphs into an ambiguous and sensuous motif.

It alludes to celestial movements while evoking the image of a pearl necklace, serving as a metaphor that bridges the everyday with the cosmic, the minute with the immense.

Analemma II, oil on canvas, 105 x 60 cm, 2024

Analemma I, oil on canvas, 65 x 40 cm, 2024

Celestial Bodies: Pulse

The Celestial Bodies - Pulse paintings delve into the multifaceted role of the phallus in queer visual culture; its repeated depiction serves as a sex-positive assertion, reiterating the celebration of the body’s visibility and validity.

The phallus is portrayed as a broader exploration of power, desire, sexuality, identity, and transcendence; atmospheric abstractions play with levels of visibility and presence, exploring the supposed split between flesh and spirit. The dichotomy of visibility and erasure reflects the meandering experiences of self, especially within queer contexts.

Pulse V, oil on canvas, 50 x 35 cm, 2024

Pulse II, oil on canvas, 48 x 34 cm, 2022

Pulse VII, oil on canvas, 50 x 35 cm, 2024

Pulse I, oil on canvas, 45 x 35 cm, 2022

Pulse III , oil on canvas, 50 x 33 cm, 2022

Pulse VI, Pulse V, Pulse VII; installation 2024

Canonically Speaking series

The project Canonically Speaking brings the writing of Mila Lanfermeijer and the paintings of Micha Patiniott in a publication of short stories published by Kunstverein Amsterdam in February 2024. Text and images converge in pursuit of understanding identity and perception as fluid and ever-changing concepts.

The series embraces the absurd, the surreal, and the transcendental as vehicles to question conventional notions of self and reality. Viewers are invited to engage with themes related to self-image, spirituality, mental states, mental health, and the public versus private sphere.

Canonically Speaking series, installation, 2024

Harmonics III (Purple Haze), oil on canvas, 37 x 47 cm, 2023

Harmonics II, oil on canvas, 40 x 32 cm, 2023

The Crown, oil on canvas, 47 x 37 cm, 2023

Soft Touch, oil on canvas, 47 x 40 cm, 2023

Blink series

Blink II, oil on canvas, 60 x 55 cm, 2020

Blink I, oil on canvas, 60 x 55 cm, 2020