Social, political or private situations of disorder create a thematical starting point; cathastophies, manmade (e.g.war) or natural, are reflected in images on newspapers and magazines around the globe. Broken bottles on a sunday morning or the glass on the floor of a smashed bus stop shelter might be signs of someone who lost control last night, signs of frustration.

In my work I try to find the essence of these pictures, to create a new image of something that is more general than a fotographic image taken in a certain place at a certain moment.

Situations of disorder often are turning points from one status quo to another. I am interested in this moment of uncertainty, when things are destroyed and created at the same time. My way of painting works in a similar sence, always trying to find that point inbetween appearing and disappearing; creating a new image from an existing one.

I am trying to find a balance between stong contrasts: The minimalistic composition is confronting  a very concentrated and naturalistic way of painting, allmost drawing. The sensitivity and intimacy of the watercolour are opposing the hard subjects and the conceptual approach of my work. The untouched white of the paper in my pictures can be both: background and subject, nothing and something.

The reduction of found images produces fragments, which in exhibitions are combined, associative, formal and narrative, to one piece or one situation.

(Achim Riethmann, ideas of his work)