Johannes Rave’s many-coloured paintings of the series “Khao Yai” are founded on a succession of different events and biographical occurrences.
Johannes Rave, born 1955, studied painting at the Stuttgart Academy of Arts. From the early beginning, travelling had been his great passion. Up to now, he has toured numerous countries in Europe, Africa and Asia and a large part of his oeuvre originated during and from those journeys.
On one of his journeys to Asia he made friends with Andre Gehrmann. This friendship came along with another one: namely his affection for Thailand, the richness of which attracts Johannes Rave up to the present day. The delightful exotic landscapes immediately let grow the wish in Johannes Rave to paint in Thailand, not only during journeys but without hurry and without any formal limitations.
On one of his journeys Johannes Rave had come to the Khao Yai National Park. At once he felt attracted by its special atmosphere, particularly in contrast to Bangkok, the huge metropolis.
In 2008 Andre Gehrmann started to develop a resort near the Khao Yai National Park, on top of a mountain’s crest with an impressive view to Khao Yai and the surrounding villages. The idea arose to decorate its houses with Johannes Rave’s paintings. To put this idea into practice, Johannes Rave went to Thailand in April 2009 and started painting on the very location where his paintings were to take up their station: in the nascent resort.
This was the artistic decision he had to take: By which subject and by which painting style could Khao Yai best be interpreted? Following his fundamental artistic approach he did not want to create something arbitrary corresponding to this particular site at best stylistically, but something actually describing the place and its atmosphere. In search of the adequate solution Johannes Rave heard about a guest taking a walking tour in the National Park who saw some object lying on the track directly before him which resembled a strong root or a fallen tree trunk. The accompanying ranger could only just prevent an accident, for what had been supposed to be a tree was in fact a huge snake, a full grown python.
Johannes Rave had found his artistic solution and chose the subject of the snake as a synonym for the jungle of Khao Yai. For him, the snake typifies the beautiful as well as the wild of the rainforest and he associated it with the mystical Naga snake which is ever-present in the temples of the surrounding villages. In mythology the Naga snake lives on the bottom of river, lake and sea in splendid palaces richly decorated with pearls and jewels and is considered the guardian of spiritual treasures and wisdom.
In abstract-expressive style Johannes Rave has now produced a number of paintings, each varying the subject of the snake in different colouring.
