Anselm Kiefer with AttRAct at The RA

AttRAct Anselm Kiefer workshop - Caroline Wong

Anselm Kiefer inspired painting - Caroline Wong

Today I attended an AttRAct workshop on Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy of Arts. I was able to participate in the general discussion about the artwork prior to entering the exhibition and then went on to present my favourite piece post viewing. After this, I was encouraged to create a Kiefer inspired painting using numerous different painting mediums.

Kiefer's early work is my favourite. A lot of it is political and his paintings often reference Norse mythology and religion. As he was 'born in the rubble' of World War 2, a lot of his artwork looks into Germany prior to Nazi power and was often seen as scandalous. It wasn't until he moved to France that he began to garner interest in his work. In Germany, his work talked about the many taboos that had really only become taboos because of their association with Hitler. One famous example is that of a battle the Germans won against the Romans. Hitler however used this example of Germany beating a powerful army in his speeches and when Nazi power collapsed, referencing the Roman battle became something no one could do. Kiefer looks into returning power to Germany by looking past their Nazi period and revelling in their other successes. However, his approach can come across as a little 'in your face' and I guess it is because of this misunderstanding that his work never took off in his home country. There's a lot of imagery used in Kiefer's work and spending an hour in the exhibit was not nearly enough time to really get a look at the paintings. Each painting appeared to have more to it that it seemed. A lot of them told stories, or illicit curiosity. 

The workshop resulted in creating a Kiefer inspired painting where we used numerous mediums ranging from paint to PVA to sand and dirt. It felt nice to let loose and experiment as we were given the choice on whether or not to reference a selection of photographs. I chose not to, and am glad I didn't. The resulting piece I created is the creation of my own emotions at the time- light greens for a brightness, dark greens for the longing to go to the countryside and black and grey for an inner turmoil.