Biography

Speech by Professor Bachmann on the occasion of the exhibition by Rufa in June 1995 in the gallery "studio im hochhaus" in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, dear Rufina

It started in this gallery like this:
Among the guests who were here for the opening of an exhibition, I was struck by the idiosyncratic appearance of a woman, and since I like painting portraits of people, I was naturally anxious to make her acquaintance.
This woman - that was Rufa - was also waiting for an encounter herself, because - which I of course had no idea - she was painting pictures herself.
That was the beginning of my entry into the life and work of a person whose development took place in a sometimes dramatic course between Asia and Europe.

I believe that it may also be of interest to you to find out something about this fate, because in my opinion these years resonate very much with the last four years of her life, in which Rufina Blache, nee Li, paints pictures in the first place .

In Uzbekistan, Central Asia. Parents are of Korean descent and both were Soviet citizens. The father works as a physics teacher.
Rufina lost her mother in her earliest childhood and had to grow up in a children's home until she was four years old. Then, after her father had found a new partner, she was able to go back to the family and thus to her 5 older siblings. She went to the Russian school and it was during this time that her love of the visual arts, which had existed since early childhood, began to take on concrete traits.

She had to make display boards for the biology class and maps for the geography class because there weren't enough of them.
Furthermore, she copied the paintings of the classical Russian masters.

As a result of a great disappointment, which she experienced with a drawing teacher she admired very much, these first impulses were buried. There was also no interest on the part of the mother and when the family moved all these artistic things were destroyed.

Last but not least, it was also her strong self-will that led her away from her parents' house and the time of great searching began. Which led them several times across the huge country from Central Asia to the Far East to what was then western Leningrad.

Here in Leningrad, for the first time, there was the possibility of receiving artistic inspiration, especially through the museums.

I had to tell you about that life before I could comment on the pictures we have before us.
With Rufina we have the phenomenon of the absolute autodidact. The conversations and suggestions she had from painters are very few. The artistic medium of oil paint just came about that way.

Rufina's strong feeling for the sensual perception of the world, the world of shapes and colors is the focus. The initially somewhat coincidental suggestion of surrealism does not contradict this. But of course it wasn't yet her own reflection on things.

But then her really own experience with people and the world prevails. Her personal surroundings, her children, the landscapes, which are always connected with concrete experiences, are worth painting for her.
In her depictions of people, she knows how to express differentiated spiritual values ​​in a gesture, an eye expression, a movement of the hands and other things.

The accuracy of their observation and their attention to detail are sometimes reminiscent of the painting of the naïve.
Some awkwardness in the spatial formulation, which was used consciously, intellectually as alienation in the so-called modern age, has the value of existential excitement attached to it.
What fascinates me about these works is that they did not result from learned knowledge about the effect of the pictorial elements and the means of design - as is the case after general training - but were created in a very elementary way.

There are two important sides to Rufina that determine the effect of her work. On the one hand, the strong need to share her own experience of the things in her world with other people. Your early journalism efforts were already aimed in this direction.
But now in the world of shapes and colors she not only has to express conceptually what moves her, but she can make this experience sensually real, so to speak.
Going into form and color, so to speak. In today's development, this "self-entering" is increasingly becoming a standard of attitude. Everything that is superficially aimed at external effect and often appears with great formal perfection, but all of that lacks a poignant and, I think, increasingly important aspect for people, which makes up the second side of Rufina's work.

This is the special individuality of the artistic personality; to feel her warmth, her joy, her sorrow but especially in her love for what she wants to communicate artistically.

If you put yourself in the pictures here, you will be able to experience this. I am pleased that Rufa has the opportunity to show her work for the first time. I wish many open-minded visitors for your further work and for this exhibition.

Thank you very much

About Me

Rufa, a self-taught artist since 1990, lives and works in Berlin.

Rufa paints what surrounds her. With her works, she opens up a kaleidoscope-like view of people, landscape and nature.

Her paintings are characterised by an immediate liveliness and invite the viewer to to immerse themselves in them. Rufa's pictures cover a broad spectrum, including landscapes spectrum; her works include landscapes, still lifes, individual and group portraits group portraits, nudes and surrealistic scenes.

The self-taught artist always focusses on the essence of the pictorial object. Thus her choice of motif intuitively and depending on the mood; she refuses to limit herself to a single to limit herself to a single genre. Many of Rufa's works are characterised by a penchant for large formats. According to the artist, these support a true grasp of the and enable a special form of understanding through their presence and size. understanding'. The relationship to the subject plays a central role for Rufa. It is important to her that the subject provides impulses for an intellectual for an intellectual dialogue.

With her realistically characterised style of expression, Rufa consciously distances herself from any staging staging and/or artificiality of representation. The artist describes artificial realities as exclusively visually characterised. For Rufa, these cannot lay claim to claim to emotions.

The endeavour to make the "essential" tangible and to convey emotions, is clearly perceptible in her portraits. These pictures are touching - even if the are strangers to the viewer. If you look at the art market of the last few decades, the popularity of this genre has been subject to significant fluctuations. Accordingly the artist also refers to her works as the 'not shown', 'disappeared pictures'

The eyes of the people portrayed often provide the "key", through which the to develop access to the figures. In her portraits, Rufa likes to depict the figures in a pensive pose. In some works, this suggests a dreamy, introverted character. The viewer is left in the dark as to whether the figure really reciprocates his gaze or is actually looking through the viewer, lost in himself 'looking through'. This gaze heightens the effect of intimacy, which is generally already inherent in the works.

The artist combines different genres in the group picture Ladybird. Thus the three figures of children, who are completely absorbed in the contemplation of a ladybird, very two-dimensional. On the bordeaux-coloured background, which is reminiscent of the drapery of a blanket the figures appear almost collage-like on the burgundy-coloured background, which is reminiscent of the drapery of a blanket. This impression is supported by a detailed element in the foreground centre ground foreground: a basket full of apples illuminated by a candle. Reminiscent of classic vanitas elements, the apples are sculpturally worked out. Through the artist creates irritation through this arrangement. The visual habits of the The combination of surface and form creates tension.

As is characteristic of Rufa's work, even in this early work she creates a special intimacy within the intimacy within the depiction and between the sitter and the viewer. viewer. The figures have an immediate presence. The artist allows the viewer to participate in a private moment of her figures. Thus the recipient here witnesses the three boys' urge to discover, absorbed in the contemplation of a ladybird. contemplation of a ladybird. A moment of the "absolute", a lingering in the amazement of the moment. The suggestion of intimacy is emphasised by the almost amorphous background, which seems to envelop the children like a cave and protect them from external cave and seems to protect them from external influences. Little Muck is characterised by the same strength and intimacy. Little Muck is characterised by the same strength and intimacy.

In this picture, too, the focus is on the figure portrayed; the background reveals nothing to the nothing about the surroundings. Instead, Little Muck appears completely seems completely oblivious and absorbed in himself, wrapped in a warm background.

In view of the technique used and the convincing effect, the fact that this is the fact that this is Rufa's first work is particularly impressive. particularly impressive.

The female bodies that Rufa paints appear raw and rough. Rough and wrinkled her nudes defy any kind of perfectionism. The application of colour appears massive, almost aggressively saturated. With these bodies, the artist is condemning the notion of femininity the notion of femininity that dominates Western societies. For the prevailing ideal of beauty is a violation of female consciousness. consciousness. Rufa wants to create reality instead of artificiality. This succeeds - even if (or perhaps or perhaps precisely because) in some cases the perspective and proportions are not at all the coarse, human element pushes itself into the foreground with immense force foreground with immense violence, which stands in a tense discrepancy to the sometimes vulnerable bodies, some of which appear vulnerable.

The viewer can hardly escape the effect of these pictures. The women remain present, even if there is no eye contact with the viewer in some of the pictures. Here, too, the bodies work for themselves, the surroundings are not recognisable to the viewer. recognisable to the viewer. The 'bare' body is the essence, whether truly naked or covered with almost more unveiled than veiled. Folds - be it in the material texture of the background texture of the background or in the faces and hands of those portrayed - serve the artist artist as a means of expressing liveliness. Rufa uses them to transform lived experiences onto the canvas.

In her surrealist works, Rufa uses symbols that also recur in her still lifes and portraits. and portraits. Flowers, for example, symbolise life, apples symbolise love. In her dream images, these symbols, which characterise the characterise the "living", meet a human coolness that is reflected in the dominant shades of blue and green. blue and green colours. At the same time, the artist associates this colour palette with a 'purity' that can also be found in the four elements. In contrast to the other groups of works, the background in these surrealist-inspired pictures the background is processed. Paths and doors are often lost in it, which symbolise life life - or the search for it. A recurring motif is represented by needles. They denote the possibility of anchoring oneself in life, regardless of where and under what circumstances.

As mentioned, Rufa's painting style concentrates on the foreground of the picture, the figure as the the essence of the picture's content. The background and its design become increasingly unimportant for the artist. increasingly unimportant for the artist.

Recent works such as the 3 Madonnas, in which Rufa leaves the canvas in the background the canvas in the background appear as a consistent continuation and logical reduction. reduction.

Three Madonnas

The viewer's attention is focussed purely on the foreground. Three "black" women are depicted side by side. The viewer's gaze is focussed on the figure in the middle. This is supported by the fact that the figure in the centre centre is also being looked at by the women flanking her. However, the woman's gaze falls through the viewer; she appears to be gazing thoughtfully into the distance.

Rufa describes the three Madonnas as a symbol of free coexistence. In addition she wants to use them to confuse the Eurocentric "white gaze", which usually connotes Madonnas usually connoted with "white" skin colour. In this motif, religious and spiritual elements and spiritual elements meet in the artist's essentialist endeavours.

Once again, Rufa succeeds in capturing the viewer's attention and inviting him to enter into a dialogue with the picture and to engage with Rufa's view of life. life.

Text: Monika Gorillé