Artworks from Etienne Donnay

The art of expression

Etienne Donnay is a persistent and unwavering contemporary artist who does not want to be pinned down stylistically. He visualises his impressions in free, expressionist interpretations, whereby his path also leads to Pop Art. In this way, he inspires with avant-garde works that find buyers all over Europe. His works show that he basically prefers a strong and luminous palette. Etienne justifies this with the fact that colours can have a great influence on a person's mood, which he constantly wants the viewer to feel.

Donnay is tireless. While he is explaining his work and approach to visitors in his studio, his thoughts keep wandering. For example, to his next project, a large-format mural, a commissioned work in a highly reduced colour scheme. Donnay needs the psychological challenge of painting, the smell of fresh paint and the feeling of brushes in his hand as an elixir of life. His otherwise rather shrill, colour-intensive and expressive abstract motifs brought Donnay not only admiration from the start. Critics were also irritated by his background: the Dresden artist had not trained his painting talent at art college, but entirely self-taught. Although Donnay had developed this now and then in various painting courses and lessons given by renowned painters, he always emphasised that his own school had influenced him more strongly.

Beyond a classical way of working

His pictorial language is powerful and multi-layered. In addition to the paintbrush, he uses various utensils to apply the colours, with which he experiments in a controllable manner. His bare hands are also frequently used. In this way, Donnay finally balances the colours in the right position, which happens directly on the canvas. The combination of different painting techniques is characteristic of his pictorial experiments. Released from the guidelines of the past, Donnay's paintings also reveal what the artist has always been about: "controlled explosion of colour and form". His pictorial design is subject to its very own demands: Donnay places particular emphasis on the balance of the elements in his work, thus bringing about a purposefully induced harmony in the overall composition. For some months now, Donnay has also been painting and drawing in small format on paper. Some of these works are black and white experiments, others organic-looking pictorial inventions, ripe for transfer to the large canvas.