"The figure was and is indispensable to me because it is the human condition that matters to me.”
- A.R Penck
A.R.Penck (1939-2017) is a German artist whose painting can, through the use of the stick man and a large number of symbols, aspire to a form of universality – with a similar technique to cave paintings. Everyone can identify and even recognize themselves with Penck’s art even before distinguishing the very special style of the artist.
It was in the 1966 that Penck aspired by the representation system used by cave man during the ice age chose, to stage the "stick man" that would make him famous. An extreme stylization of the human figure reduced to its essentials, simple but primitive, all too human in short, the stick man also had a therapeutic vocation for the artist in post-war Germany. A.R. Penck often presents him in an aggressive posture towards another person or his environment. As if echoing this attitude, the rugged and complex landscapes are drawn from the memory of the burnt-out landscapes of his childhood in Dresden, destroyed by bombs.