The works of Yves Oppenheim employ a complex formal and abstract language based on principles of repetition, variation, and resumption. His complex approach towards composition and use of color ties his practice closely with traditional frameworks of painting. Superimpositions of forms, interlaced and transparent, depict the successive constructions and deconstructions that constitute painting, thereby questioning the medium from within.
In Untitled, 2005, Oppenheim deals exclusively with a formal language of abstraction, where color and light function as the work’s central device. Intertwining and partially overlapping a controlled vocabulary of color compositions, Oppenheim points to systems of color’s organization. Rhythmically transformed in variations and following a general movement or energy, the work’s composition reveals the successive constructions and deconstructions tied to the making and the conceptualization of the work. With an accurate and powerful brushstroke, characteristic of the work, Oppenheim draws the eye deep into the canvas. Preventing immediate interpretation or any sense of narrativity, the work intentionally disquiets the viewer and invites him instead for a closer analysis, which determines for Oppenheim the production of an artwork, allows for the notion of time to prevail upon the notion of space. Despite its discordant composition and analytical structure, however, the painting remains, above all else, a sensual work that transforms and translates and reveals itself like a luminous surface from which everything comes, and everything ends.

Markéta Condeixa

Natalia Ortega-Gámez

Artworks

9 Tones2018

Yves Oppenheim

Bruno Pacheco