“Valentin Oman is a trac­er, com­pa­ra­ble to an archae­ol­o­gist. His main inter­est is peo­ple, at times the land­scape. In his art, in paint­ing, draw­ing, print­mak­ing, sculp­ture and wall paint­ings, he pur­sues the con­di­tions of human exis­tence and the nature of human beings in the present with great respect and respect. He is look­ing for a uni­ver­sal­ly valid, time­less image that is nev­er­the­less root­ed in the present and takes account of the individual’s involve­ment in polit­i­cal and social circumstances.

An essen­tial aspect of Oman’s works of art is the sen­su­al qual­i­ty of the sur­faces and the mate­ri­al­i­ty, which appear as equal ele­ments of mean­ing along­side the con­tent-relat­ed issue, and even merge with it. In paint­ing, the artist uses tex­tiles, glue and plas­ter in addi­tion to oil paints, or works in news­pa­per clip­pings or media images in a col­lage-like man­ner. He lets thin lay­ers of paint peel off or par­tial­ly scratch­es them off again. It gives the impres­sion that these sur­faces have gone through a long process of assem­bly and dis­man­tling. At the same time, they are giv­en a sub­stance whose mate­ri­al­i­ty and col­or make you think of weath­ered, nat­ur­al sur­faces made of stone or sand. Indi­vid­ual human fig­ures appear on these sur­faces, or rather on these sur­faces, in a shad­owy and stat­uesque man­ner. ”Mag­dale­na Felice

The exhi­bi­tion presents cur­rent mixed tech­niques from 2019, from a total of 9 cycles, on paper from “Ultra­ma­rine”, “Val­ca­mon­i­ca”, “Again and again Walls (Beth­le­hem)” and “Trace Sle­di” and on can­vas from the cycles “Ecce Homo”, “Traces”, “Vien­nese traces”, “Beth­le­hem” and “Homo faber” by the artist, who was born in St. Ste­fan / teben near Vil­lach in 1935, are shown.