Oil Paintings 1980-2010

The transition from Peter Dotrel’s style of the 1970s to that of the two last decades of the 20th century is fluent but clearly visible. Since circa 1980 the human body gains center stage, however mostly as figures with shadowed faces or not precisely defined figural elements. It seems as if Dotrel dissects the concept of being human to find himself. He is not interested in an exact reproduction of the human body, but in an anatomy of the soul. Also the surroundings and the conditions those souls are exposed to are of great importance to the artist. The reduced coloring with a red-white-black scheme is a signature feature of the 1980s and 1990s. Dotrel’s brush stroke, which was reduced in favor of homogeneous color fields in the 1970s, now gains importance once more and becomes a vital artistic device. During the 1980s Peter Dotrel is also increasingly fascinated by the intuitive painting technique and the calligraphic, sign-like black lines of Informel art.