Page 30 - Oto Rimele | Singular

I DO NOT DEPICT LIGHT, BUT CREATE IT
His artistic work could be characterized as “spiritual
Oto Rimele is a painter, visual artist, creator of multimedia minimalism”, signifying a focus on the essential in the
spatial installations, composer, and university professor at the manner of inner enlightenment. To see, one must carefully

University of Maribor. In 2004, he received the Prešeren Fund look, capture, and appreciate the meticulously created
Award for his painting exhibition Iluminacije (Illuminations). works.
In 2012, his monograph, Oto Rimele: Duhovnost materialne Dr. Tanja Gurke, insight from Resilienzen. Ein Aufruf 2023

odsotnosti / Spirituality of Material Absence, was published,
featuring an analysis of his work in the context of past and Light is the most important element of his artistic
contemporary visual production, written by Dr. Jure Mikuž. expression. He creates a kinetic painterly image composed
In 2021, 2023 and 2025, Rimele was featured in the publication of light and shadows, and the changing reflections of
Top Ten Contemporary Artists, released in London. He has colour.

held numerous solo exhibitions and artistic projects both in Dr. Marja Lorencak Kiker, insight from Oto Rimele: Berlin
Slovenia and internationally. In 2023, he presented his project Portraits Metamorphosis 2023
Berlin Portraits Metamorphosis to the American audience in

New York and Arlington. The oval paintings give the feeling that somewhere in their
essence, invisible to the human eye , there is a light source,
REFLECTIONS ON OTO RIMELE’S ART which disperses the cleansed and superior light through
the reflective whiteness of the wall into the space.
The painting is no longer identical with the canvas within Dr. Nataša Smolič, insight from Oto Rimele: Ambient Light

the format of the subframe, nor with the pigments applied of Shadows 2018
to the surface, nor with the surface of the painting itself.
Only the image remains, like dawn, enabled by colour and Is tood and witnessed the silence. The voice of silence

the properties of light as the sum of all colours in the colour was crafted by the paintings, and their sound was a visible
wheel. Where exactly this painting is, no longer matters. silence that settled in the space. Rimele created a visible
It mysteriously hovers somewhere in front of us, in front “emptiness”.
of the wall or even within it. Dr. Tomaž Brejc, insight from Studies on Slovenian Painting
Dr. Andrej Smrekar, insight the ceremony on the awarding of the in the 20 th Century 2010

Prešeren Fund Award to the painter Rimele 2004
The ladder is for the viewer’s mind and the light is for the
By shifting attention from colour to coloured shadows, the viewer’s soul. The first rises, the second glows.

effect of edges, which previously dictated the perception Oto Rimele insight from Light and Ladder 2021
of the pictorial field, is also transferred into the space
beyond the painting. In the interplay between colour, light, Many of Mr Rimele’s public expositions can be described
and shadow, the object carrier and its edges dissolve in as simply beautiful if we follow Plotinus’s explanation of
the direction of dematerialization within the coloured light. the Beautiful and if we believe that observing the Beautiful

Glossary of Slovenian Art after 1945 also makes the observer beautiful.
Dr. Marjeta Ciglenečki, insight from Contemplation of
Rimele went even further; in his installations, he studied Observation, Singularity and Beauty 2019

the laws of colour ref lections and shadows with
care and thus created magical new worlds in which For me, light itself is the central motif of painting
exploration.
TOTO RIMELE | SINGUL AR dematerialisation. Oto Rimele, insight from the Kinetic Minimalism of the Light:
materiality intertwines with their coloured shadowed
Top 10 Contemporary Artists 2023
Dr. Jure Mikuž / Oto Rimele. Spirituality of Material Absence 2012

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