Striated Visions: Nico's Layered Abstract Landscapes

Emotion is one of the most important components of successful art, and a couple of weeks ago I spoke with an artist who does it beautifully. His name is Niko Sawatzki. After a series of glitches in our communication we were able to connect about an hour after the scheduled call. When we finally did it, the conversation was incredibly stimulating. A very demure Nico lives and works in Ragensburg, Germany, near Munich. I first became acquainted with his work through a friend who put us in touch. I loved his work from the moment I saw it, and I loved it even more when he spoke about his process.

Nico creates large-scale paintings of abstract landscapes in black and white—and often an additional light hue; though his technique and his masterful use of gradient to produce depth render the color palette rather inconsequential. His work is built from the background forward through repeated layering of pigments, which include oils and acrylics. Subsequently, these layers are partially scraped away in a meticulous manner: the canvas is divided into equally spaced horizontal stripes. When this is done (and before the paint fully dries) a knife carves out the top layers as it’s run through the canvas following the guides for these horizontal lines. The final result: a combination of minute and close together vertical lines within any given horizontal line, which interrupt the smooth gradient that had been formed by the layering of paint.

Visual scenes give us an enormous amount of information that the brain processes for a quick interpretation of what we’re seeing. Upon close examination of the work—which requires one to stand really close to the canvas—the lines that remain as a result of the scraping form a pattern that phenomenally reveals a landscape as one steps farther away from the painting. The aggregation of the lines that remain after scraping the surface of the canvas (called “visual grouping”) happens automatically when the brain organizes proximal elements together to reveal a whole. The overall effect ends up being a wonderful harmony between the severity of the marks left by the scraping knife and the calmness of the whole.

We’ve all seen landscapes that have put us to sleep—or maybe it’s just me. Regardless, I believe that Nico Sawatzki has taken on the task of recreating in an innovative manner an overused subject matter (landscape) thus adding new relevance to the style.