(...) Erwin Pfrang’s images have come a long way. At first encounter they can be unsettling, causing puzzelment or shock, and the artist’s recent development may mean that they produce these reactions even in those who thought they knew his work. Yet if one is open, if one lets oneself be guided by the paintings, then one will recognize certain constant features along a path that Pfrang has followed consistently and that now reveals itself as a process of maturing.

Pfrang’s paintings of the early 1980s outwardly very different from his later work, already show the artitst feeling his way, hesitantly and with a muted palette, toward and around certain basic themes that have since come to dominate his oeuvre. These images focus on an associative approach to subjects central to the religious and mythological experience and interpretation of the world – subjects such as creation, birth, and death – some motifs being treated directly and indirectly in ever new variations. The fairytale atmosphere of some of these early paintings is by no means carefree, and a threatening undertone can be perceived amog the guilelessness of childlike games and dreams. Increasingly, however, the images tell of an insistently experienced present, which threatens at first to engulf the last remaining elements of figurative self-assertion in cascades and whirlpools of paint and eventually to overwhelm the individual in the form of oppressively dense metaphorical projections. With particular sensitivity the artist reacts with concern and distress to the guilt and need in which all human existence is entangled and he confronts the absurdities of modern civilization with irony and a touch of sarcasm.

These basic attitudes also have informed Pfrang’s subsequent work, including his latest paintings: seeds initially barely perceptile as such have borne fruit. Increased mastery of artistic techniques has been accompanied by greater sobriety and by a broader view, a more liberal approach to emotions, heightened clarity, and a more decisive manner. Outward signs of Pfrang’s growth in confidence are the lightening and intensification of his palette and the desire to conquer large formats.

In spite of the length of the road it has traveled, notwithstanding the multifarious forms of expression it envinces, Pfrang’s painting pursues a single aim, presistently and from ever new angles: to investigate human self-examination and self-experience, an investigation that he himself undertakes as an exemplum, offering the results to the viewer. These images resemble static scenes on a world stage, scenes that focus not on the unfolding of a plot, but on the description and appraisal of a situation. States and circumstances are presented, but not interpreted, commented on, or dressed in didactic garb. It is up to the viewer to draw his or her conclusions. (...)

Text by Peter Eikemeier, Extract from: Forms of Dawning Conciousness, in: Erwin Pfrang. Bilder, Verlag Fred Jahn, Munich 1999