Arnulf Rainer

Arnulf Rainer (born 8 December 1929, in Baden, Austria), is an Austrian painter and is internationally renowned for his abstract informal art. In his early years, Rainer was influenced by Surrealism. In 1950, he founded the Hundsgruppe (dog group) together with Ernst Fuchs, Arik Brauer, and Josef Mikl. After 1954, Rainer's style evolved towards Destruction of Forms, with blackenings, overpaintings, and maskings of illustrations and photographs dominating his later work. He was close to the Vienna Actionism, featuring body art and painting under drug influence. He did a lot of work on Hiroshima, after the bombing.

Under the influence of the gestic painting of Jackson Pollock, Jean Paul Riopelle and Wols, with whom he got acquainted in Paris in 1951, he turned away from fantastic Surrealism and moved on to abstract micro-structures. Around 1953 the first over paintings, which accompanied his whole life, came into existence. Religious themes, crucifies, had a lasting influence on his work. After intensive drug experiences and studies in psychiatric hospitals, he began to overprint photos of his own physiognomy and his body as well as pictures of Old Master and contemporary paintings. The studies of body language and the question of his identity became manifest in the series "Face Farces" and "Body Poses", which resulted in points of contact to the Vienna Actionist.

Creating a piece of work similar to Rainer’s is going take a model to pose in the correct way, I will be taking pictures from my previous work that is unprovoked and then paint and scratch onto the image.

I will be using acrylic paints and a Stanley knife to manipulate my work.

Rainer’s working style has a dramatic influence to it, he uses models in an extraordinary form or pose. Rainer’s models pose to how they will be drawn on, for instance the person being cut down the middle, and being strangled so acting with facial and body expressions to expose his body for later manipulation.

Images from :
http://soko-barefoot.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/arnulf-rainer.html