The subjects in Rieben's paintings and black and white drawings are overwhelming their environment. They are spreading out on the canvas but at the same time their concentric shape is directing the view to one central focus. Rieben uses the whole repertoire of artistic means: Powerful flow of colours, opaque application in wide ribbons, or delicate filigree, meticulous structures, often combined in the same image.

Starfishes and octopuses, opulent blossoms, circles evoking annual rings inscribed in dark holes: Through these metaphors, Rieben takes us to a sub-aqueous world, we are diving deep into the subconscious sphere, where subjects get a different, a further significance. "I make paintings about love - specifically, losing at love," Rieben explains. Explicit erotic connotations occur, but also the void after an excruciating loss evolves in his paintings and drawings. Like a black hole, the visualised emptiness engulfs the environment. Even light is absorbed: Pain at its worst. Rieben develops a language of painting, combining abstract and representational components into a synthesis, which allows the direct transmission of emotions through the image depicted on the canvas.

Referring to painting tradition since the early Renaissance, Rieben explores the concept of the canvas. What about Alberti's theory, declared in 1435, supposing the canvas being similar to an open window, admitting a view to the world beyond the image area? Reflections of this theory also come to mind, when you think of the flat rectangular screen of the television. Many of Rieben's paintings imply the idea of a screen, rectangular or circular, a black area within the image, questioning the reality of appearance. In Modern painting, the canvas became more and more an object. Rieben's paintings oscillate in the tension between traditional and modern painting, between approving and negating the canvas as an image. So draw aside the curtains, open the window, and take a look at an extraordinary world, Rieben's world.

Christian Rieben graduated with an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006.

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