Rainer Bonar: Planübermalungen - Painting Over Maps, painting (1986/87)
Rainer Bonar: Planübermalungen - Painting Over Maps, painting (1986/87)
For this series, the painter and graphic designer Rainer Bonar painted over old city maps of Berlin. Using rough brush strokes and rich colours, he composed a new structure on the maps. Bonar had long been interested in city structures, especially those of his home city of Berlin. The city appears as the theme or motif of his work again and again. After coming to West Berlin in the early 1980s, Bonar worked in the town planning office in Berlin-Wilmersdorf for a while, starting in 1985. There, he found old city maps, which he used as a base for his Painting Over Maps.
Bonar's motifs run through all his pieces: His themes of borders, freedom, climbing and falling can also be found in these pictures. The birds on the maps are reminiscent of the Prussian Icarus. It looks like the falling Icarus wants to get over the city's border post. Or is he being prevented from climbing up? According to Bonar, this is for the observer to decide.
Natascha Grochowski
Gallery
