Kleine Töne (Out of the Blue)
Single & Series of Oil Paintings • Digital • 2024
single cover photo by Claudia Kleiner
“Like the individually woven threads of a canvas on which chalk paint has been rubbed, the different parts lead into one another and blend into a structure of their own, which is new to us but nevertheless familiar,” Fama M’Boup says about Olicía’s collaboration with the abstract painter Claudia Kleiner. Indeed, this collaboration, despite the obvious difference in art form and creation, seems almost like a “comfort zone” to both parties. Claudia Kleiner’s abstract, thickly textured paintings are created with great precision in a time-consuming process and they often adhere to strict geometrical forms balancing clarity and emotion, precision and liveliness. All this could also be said of Olicía’s loop-based song creations.
The song opens with a spoken word passage in German: a poem on the process of creating or perceiving a work of art, blurring the line between sounds and colors in an almost dreamlike manner. Anna-Lucia describes the origins of the lyrics as follows: “’Kleine Töne’ is like a reversal of direction, a retrospective of sorts. Where do wecome from? Where does creativity start, where lies the spark, the first heartbeat? Is there a pool in which the unborn ideas and inventions float before they creep into our consciousness? The empty canvas, the step back to the origin, a pathway to the core by peeling off layer by layer.”
Claudia Kleiner’s work process in her paintings often leads from the end to the beginning. By putting layer upon layer onto the canvas but also taping or covering certain aereas, the observer can see into the layers below. “It’s like she is creating little windows into the previous worlds,” Anna-Lucia says. “We tried to do the same thing in music and lyrics, melodies and words that surface become fragmented and deconstructed and flow back together into something bigger and new. Fragments of voices and samples of noises like a brief flash of something that used to be.”
Claudia Kleiner, who lives and works in Dresden, Germany, explains her work process of creating a series of five paintings the following way: "The song is based upon layered tracks. It starts with few elements and gains complexity, density, and interactions. As I listened to the recordings Anna and Fama sent me in the process, I tried to find counterparts by transforming the individual sounds to shapes, textures, and assortments of colors. Does this vocal line have an upward movement? Does this rhythm create an austere form? I wanted to layer the counterparts and weave them into one another the same way the music does. There are many possible branches that can be taken during the creative process. That's why the idea of a mini series seemed charming to me: Each painting is inspired by the same musical elements, but develops a different realization."
You can purchase the originals or a leporello of the art works by Claudia Kleiner and read more about this project on our label shop www.o-cetera.com
Claudia Kleiner (*1985) studied painting at the Dresden University of Fine Arts (HfBK)from 2005 to 2011. After a study visit to the Universidad de Castilla-La-Mancha (UCLM),she completed her master‘s degree with Peter Bömmels with distinction at the HfBKDresden in 2013. The artist lives and works in Dresden.
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