Statement                             >> german <<

Samuel Frömel's work is rooted in the exploration of thought, material and surface - where memory and perception meets. These layers of paint are added, erased, burned, or rubbed off, which lets old layers come back to the surface and mix with the current image, creating a kind of patina. This patina isn't just shaped by time, it's like it's fallen out of time, resisting achronological understanding.

The engagement with the material of mind and memory and the material of color, canvas and body creates new combinations of experience and takes place out of time.
Photographs refer to the past, but are only interpreted and experienced in the present. Engaging with photos from his own life, his family, or the internet, Samuel plays with the past and the never-been in the present moment. It arises in a figurative or implied form.

In a similar way, language enters the work, driven by the need to approach the inner realm and to take one's own mind as a field of inquiry. Words are more than just a way of sharing information and feeling; they are their own thing, with sound, rhythm and imagery but relative to colour, form and atmosphere. It's a way of fishing and sifting through the subconscious, really, and it's a modelling process where memories and associative movements continuously reshape the work. The work is also given a title in this independent but relational manner.

Each work starts like a stone thrown into water — a gesture or an idea that sets things in motion and allows it to sink. Yet the greater challenge can lie in surrendering. In allowing both the stone and oneself to be given over to the water. Arrival is not forced but granted: a moment of resonance, and grace. Yet the path of the stone – or the work – depends on the thrower's will and determination. You've got to throw yourself wholeheartedly into the process and let it take you where it's going.

This process embraces unpredictability and transformation by letting go of oneself - questioning authorship and approaching creation as an act of receptivity and surrender; an open field for growing flowers and throwing stones.