GUNTHER JOHANNES has the nervous energy of a child. "I do not verbalize," he says, motioning to his paintings covering the walls of Susen Sawatzki's home. "People ask me to explain them and I say, `I don't know. I just do them."'
Johannes worries a great deal about having to explain the meaning behind his paintings. Renoir had the same complaint. "Nowadays," Renoir said, "they want to explain everything. But if they could explain a picture, it wouldn't be art." Johannes could not agree more."To truly see where things come from," he says, "and why I decide to put a spot here or there . . . my mind does not tell me. It comes from somewhere inside. This is the exciting thing. It's a never ending process."
Johannes is passionate about art, and his paintings show it. His works have a traditional, old European richness that "comes from my Flemish background. We paint this way."
He lays down broad, flat areas of transparent color that eventually become trees, a river, the sky. Working his oil like watercolor, he applies diluted layers, blending the colors, creating a gauze-like smear. To emphasize an object, he accents it with thick paint. The contrast catches the eye, and I find myself wanting to crawl into the canvas to understand how he gets the clouds to look the way they do.
His technique of oil on Mylar - a technique that took years to develop - would make any abstract painter salivate. In "Chrysalis," nine different textures are discernible, and within the nine, several variations on each.
Rubbing the painted surface of "Chrysalis," Johannes begins a sermon on the mystery of oil application and transparency. When I confess my small and insignificant experiments with painting on plaster, he virtually jumps into my lap. His fingers squeeze the air like he can wring a big "just-you-wait" from divine sponges. "You must use thinned oil," he says. "Once you start using that you're going to get excited. Once you use thin paint you're going to love it. Call me when you do."
Johannes' new obsession is creating abstract pieces while searching for shapes within the abstraction that he can transform into realistic figures. "Awaiting the Visitor" (oil on canvas) is such a painting: An Indian chief, miraculously emerging out of chaotic shapes, colors and lines.
Soon, Johannes will release his "Memories" series - scenes from his childhood. "This was in Germany," he says, fingering a sketch of befouled smoke stacks surrounded by vibrant flowers. "But it can be anywhere. Painting must be universal, you know?"
The sermon on transparency resumes and we walk together around Sawatzki's dinning room, exploring every nuance of Johannes' paintings. I wonder why anybody who communicates so effectively with a paintbrush need ever worry about verbalizing.
Renoir, Johannes' comrade in art-explanation-affliction, said it best. "Shall I tell you what I think are the two qualities of art? The first is that it cannot be described in words, and the second is that it can never be imitated. . . A work of art must seize you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. A painting is the means by which an artist conveys his passions; it is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his emotions."
Gunther Johannes lives and paints in Fruitland, Utah. Thirty paintings from his private collection will be on display at the home of Susen Sawatzki, 517 2nd Avenue in Salt Lake City, Saturday, Nov. 12, and Sunday, Nov. 13. For more information, contact Ms. Sawatzki at 530-4923