Elias Binder – Colour, form and composition
- Jonas
Colour, form and composition – that’s what Elias Binder is dealing with. Guided by intuition, he stages dynamic sceneries full of mysticism, human-like figures, and flowing nature. In conversation with Additive, he talks about the human body as an artistic tool, the influence of his architecture studies and his approach to dealing with art history.
We last spoke two years ago, and a lot has happened for you since then. How do you look back on this development? What have you learned during this time?
I constantly question the entire process of painting, because with every day and every painting new questions arise. The concrete goal of the past two years was to bring together drawing—which is really what I do best—and painting.
Back then you said that everything begins with a drawing that emerges very automatically – from the subconscious – and that you then transfer onto the canvas. Has that changed?
By now, most things happen directly on the canvas itself. That then becomes the preliminary drawing.
Do the preliminary drawing and the composition still emerge spontaneously, or do you now think more about the story you want to tell?
Quite the opposite. In the past, my works were much more narrative. I try to avoid that now, because in my opinion it distracts from the painting itself. My goal is to create something that doesn’t actually tell a story, but simply exists as a composition. I often notice that with paintings that tell a story, a lot of the appeal is lost for me.
Because the story should rather emerge in the viewer?
Exactly. I want my paintings to have a certain openness. The story remains in the background. People or figures function as compositional elements, but in my mind I think about them in a rather abstract way. Everything merges into an image made up of composition and colour.
You mentioned questions that arise while painting. Can you be more specific?
These are largely technical questions. How do I place colours next to one another? Where do I create clear edges? Where do I let things blur? This is a process that changes again and again from painting to painting.
What makes a good painting for you? What are you looking for?
That’s difficult to say, because it’s very intuitive. With paintings I really like, it’s not so much about what is depicted. It’s more as if I’m looking “through“ the painting. I stop paying attention to individual details and suddenly get lost in thought. I perceive it as a whole—looking “through“ it.
Then you could just as well paint abstractly, couldn’t you?
But where is the boundary? Take my painting “Klare Luft (Clean Air)“, for example. Is that abstract? For me it was, somehow, even though it has clear forms. At the same time, painting is always abstract in some way. The subject doesn’t really change just because you paint figuratively. You’re still working with the same means—colour, canvas, form.
I’ve also looked at a lot of abstract painting and realized that there actually isn’t a real difference. I saw, for example, some paintings by de Kooning and noticed that his use of colour is very close to what I want to achieve in my own work. His works are of course less figurative, but that’s not really relevant. Form and colour are the actual language.
Why did you nevertheless end up painting figuratively?
I’m very fascinated by how intuitively the human body is understood—how a posture can create an expression without anything concrete being said.
I notice, for instance, that shoulders are always very present in my paintings. Some people have told me that many of my figures look tense. For me, it feels as if the figures are under pressure.
You say that what is depicted is essentially secondary—that it’s about expression, and that your compositions emerge from the subconscious. Does it happen—echoing the idea of Surrealism—that the result surprises you? That it reveals something about you that you weren’t previously aware of?
There are moments when I discover something in a painting that I didn’t expect, but that happens rather rarely. I think that through constant drawing there are simply certain objects that I’ve realized work well for painting—flowers and feathers, for example.
So the depicted objects or elements function more as tools?
Exactly.
You just showed me wax reliefs that you’re currently experimenting with. What role does space play in your work?
In architecture, that’s a huge topic: spatial perception. During my architecture studies I thought a lot about this—both architectural and natural space.
That’s why I like to start my paintings with a clear horizon. With this plane, everyone immediately knows: we are in the natural world, where there is ground and sky—not somewhere in free-floating space. It’s the simplest decision. After that, I think about what kind of space I’m suggesting, and how it relates to a two dimensional representation. Many experiences come into play—spaces that have deeply impressed me.
What kinds of spaces, for example?
On a university excursion to Seville, we went to a river delta outside the city. At that place, the horizon was so dominant and the light so extreme. It completely overwhelmed me when I stepped off the bus. It was like another planet—the flattest landscape I’ve ever seen.
I realized that after returning from that trip, this horizon line suddenly appeared in my work. That experience affected me profoundly—perceiving that space, that landscape. And since then it has somehow carried through. It’s not always visible, but it’s always present.
Your motifs often have something historical, even mystical—perhaps due to the depiction of the naked body, which runs through the entire history of art. Where do you see the origin of this style?
As I mentioned, I’m particularly fascinated by the human body and its anatomy. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand the human body. How does the human function as a machine? Where are the muscles? Through incessantly drawing the body, I can now improvise and distort it in a way that gives me what I want formally. For example, the shoulder of this woman (points to one of his paintings) definitely has something true about it—it’s recognizable as a shoulder—but anatomically, the depiction doesn’t really make sense. Whether I paint trees or the human body, I give the painting a structure that is grounded in our reality, even though it actually has very little to do with it.
I’m also a big fan of Mannerist and Baroque painting, which has definitely influenced me, even though for works from that period there’s a very fine line for me between what I like and what I don’t like at all. Take Rubens, for example. For a long time I thought the figures in his paintings were extremely realistic, but at some point I realized they’re not—at least that’s my impression. He uses human anatomy as a basic structure, but the concrete form is entirely invented. I strongly identify with that.
In your artist statement you speak about timelessness versus the image of a specific time. Where do you see a zeitgeist aspect in your work?
Here again I have to refer to architecture, specifically postmodern architecture of the 1980s. At that time, architects freely combined elements from historical periods. It was fashionable to engage with history in a playful, even ironic way. My way of working with history is very similar—though less ironic.
I might, for example, look at the Baroque or Mannerism and consider which references and elements I find compelling.
I don’t feel the urge to create something new. I don’t believe that’s possible. In this regard, the book The Shape of Time by George Kubler had a strong influence on me. It explains that human-made forms—whether in architecture or art—recur again and again. They serve a certain period and are then replaced – by forms that have also existed before.
I see it the same way in painting, which is why art-historical references are so exciting to me: through their reuse, they inevitably become contemporary again. Especially in the digital realm, all epochs exist side by side at all times. The way I perceive art is like a flow of images that coexist in parallel…
…inviting recontextualization?
Yes, I like the term “playing” in this context. I’ve realized that this is essentially the only thing I do—playing with things, trying out different approaches and seeing what happens. On one level, this has something very childlike about it, but it can also be taken very seriously. That’s what I try to do.
What no longer exists today—unlike in the Baroque or other periods—is the “seriousness” of the religious context. While that is no longer present, the historical references remain. I think, especially with figurative works, this creates a certain sense of awe out of habit.
At the same time, there is also a rejection of modern and contemporary art today and a call to return to Old Master painting and “traditional” craftsmanship. I obviously don’t see it that way, but it’s still a topic I try to play with. The question of how one can even paint today—because everything has already existed before.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter in which context works were created. Because they exist, one cannot escape their influence.
Exactly. That brings us back to architectural postmodernism. The goal of modernism was to create something new and erase everything else. Postmodernism, however, realized that nothing emerges in a vacuum—that one has to deal with and play with the past and its fragments. That also reflects my approach. I don’t think about these ideas quite concretely while painting, but they definitely shape my work.
I’m aware of what has existed, and ultimately I focus on the topics that interest me. But I don’t see it as my task to name concrete themes or to force a justification onto my paintings. That’s for viewers or art historians to do—either they like it, or they don’t.