Texts and Interviews

“How does painting position itself in a world where the role of the image has fundamentally changed? For a long time, painting has had a monopoly on the large, colorful, impactful image. Then it was replaced by photography as the new leading image medium. Nevertheless, painting remained the undisputed main medium of art until well into the 20th century. In recent decades, however, this has changed – permanently. The perception of the world has become multi-medial – just as in art. Is painting, or even drawing, still relevant in our multi-medial present? As a viewer of Christian Bazant-Hegemark’s works, I have the impression that this common question resonates in his work artistically, but isn’t ultimately all that important. The artist does not want to justify himself for his inherently traditional medium, the painted picture does not have to prove that it can still keep up with the needs and demands of our time. His art has something natural and unconstrained; it does not want to please or superficially suggest meaning or topicality. The paintings and drawings are simply there and do not pander, nor do they want to follow a certain Zeitgeist or trend. And yet in their content and formal orientation they are only possible today, in this here and now.“

(Günther Oberhollenzer, 2021)