Sembrar Futuro | Robert Ritter

In this new series of mixed-media artworks created on skateboards, artist Robert Ritter presents powerful content on a tattooed surface. He merges the artistic scene of skateboard culture with references to his own work, particularly his inked arms.

The price is for one skateboard; the photo shows two skateboards.

"Skateboard culture has always held a great attraction for me. As a teenager, I skateboarded a lot and was fascinated by the iconography of the boards. Now, to be able to design my own boards with the help of a cultural grant is fantastic. I approached it like creating arm sleeves, collecting motifs and drawing them on paper. Like a tattoo, a sleeve. I had these designs printed on 50 boards. Digital printing on heat sheets, 7 layers of maple, as it should be for a board."

The question of what a picture support is or can be has always been part of my work. Why rectangular and rigid on the wall? Does a work of art transform into something else when it has a different form or when it whizzes across the asphalt under a skater's feet? I like that the boards still look like armrests. Nevertheless, there are also slogans. A rustic inscription is applied to the meticulously drawn motifs. Destruction or complement? The delicate images are completely or partially covered. Sometimes quite jarring. And again, this question of painting. Is it painting when a motif is carefully crafted or when you just slap a slogan over it? When the skateboard is used, scratches appear. Is that painting too?

The slogans fit the skateboards just as well as the posters. Skateboards are almost always a means of expression, a way for the rider to identify themselves. – Robert Ritter, 2024

Robert Ritter can be described as a master of materiality, who knows how to use paint in the form of high relief: countless layers of paint are applied thickly, thus achieving tactile qualities of a veritable objecthood, while the last of these layers serves as the canvas for the final motif. In this way, Robert Ritter spans the spectrum from purely representational art, reminiscent of the figurative style of tattoo culture, through traditional maritime imagery, to the pure texture and material properties of paint. The canvas, as the support for the respective motif, sometimes becomes the base of the work itself, or is so thoroughly destroyed and reduced that it remains recognizable only as a net-like woven structure.

Other works by Robert Ritter