Atelier & Gallery Ostrman
One could say: the path has been found; there is no need to search for or change it. It leads to man and the sea. And yet, we seek the image of an artist who, for himself and for us, recognizes the most visible traces on that path and the most evident reasons for the journey. Traces that hold more value in their suggestion than in their reach. Traces that turn impossibilities into possibilities.
This is how sailor Whistler, the main character of many of Ostrman’s paintings, sees things. He connects everything, intertwining with the world, unraveling the story of the sea and its marvelous adventures. He entertains the observer with a cheerful seriousness and the ease of comic book heroes. The same, yet different, he shifts, changes positions, creates new visual patterns and emotional associations, offering endless possibilities for composing a painting.
He gives color to the entire composition. His name evokes a whistle, the sound aspect of reality, the desire for the painting to be heard. In every scene, he is shaped by the same code: a frontal stance, symmetrical and static, reduced to geometry. He is open to communication, lively and entertaining, simple yet wise, detached from reality, serious in his roles, and wistful in his dreams of distant horizons.
The virtual world in his paintings exists not only for itself but also for an encounter with the viewer. It expects eye-to-eye contact, understanding, and closeness. We smile at him, and he smiles back at us. He is here to tell us something about the artist—the artist’s story about man and the sea. But also ours—about our need to imagine distant places and dream.
This is Ostrman’s nonverbal communication, a playful tease that brings a smile to the viewer’s face. The design of the sailor’s blue-and-white striped shirt extends across the entire surface of the painting, following every scene. Lines of equal proportions and spacing, symmetrical in their structural movement, condense the composition, activate the surface, and suggest limitless horizons.
The line becomes a graphic foundation and the carrier of surface projection, so the painting remains inseparable from the drawing. The artist's style is clear: reduction, bright and intense color spaces, and a postmodernist lexicon. In Whistler, the artist has found a simple metaphor that he carries from painting to painting, shaping his artistic profile and making himself recognizable.
The idea of the concrete and elemental in painting is even more evident in the *Ships* series. The reduced form of the ship cuts through the static horizon, with calm and clean surfaces of sky and sea. Smoke from the ship’s chimney breaks the sky’s plane and directs the gaze back toward the stern. These are variations of the same motif, an analytical dialogue of colors. Form, the relationship of surfaces, rhythm, direction of movement, and the breaking of planes—all remain the same, only the colors have switched places. The viewer, whether in front of or behind the ship, becomes an invisible part of the scene, the other side of the story.
Volume is reduced to a surface, space is evoked through color—by contrasting chromatic values. The artist's visual thought is focused on simplicity and clarity of expression, rejecting narration and embracing the purity of the painterly palette. Whether stationary or sailing, the ships embody a logic of measure, reduction, and order, yet also evoke dreamy spaces. The artist’s own words best describe this body of work: *I love flat painting, geometry, and pure colors, positivity. A painting must be concrete, like a traffic sign. Everyone must understand it immediately.*
A new morphology and a freer painterly expression can be observed in the Regattas series. The theme remains the same, but the artistic language changes. The color is denser, the brushstrokes more restless, and the gesture more pronounced. Brushstrokes and light effects activate the entire surface of the painting. Everything belongs to the deep registers of blue. The powerful sea rolls across the awakened surface, while sailboats, in disciplined order, cut through the horizon line.
The sailboats are the only narrative element. They energize the painting, determine the direction of movement, and bring the scene to life. Their virtual motion transcends reality, creating a sense of movement throughout the composition—the sailboats, sea, and sky all seem to be in constant motion. The composition follows a familiar pattern: sky above, sea below, sailboats in the center. Almost monochromatic and nearly abstract, these paintings are free in imagination, cheerful, and optimistic.
Ostrman constantly seeks synthesis, the discipline of geometry, and the aesthetic nature of his motifs. Through centering, organization, and exploration of the surface, his paintings leave a strong impression of precision and rational order, yet also of freedom. Figuration is his choice, with occasional forays into abstraction serving only as a brief departure from the main thread of his work—carefree play. Sailors, the sea, ships, and sailboats exist as objective realities. The artist arranges them in space and time, creating a spectacle for the viewer but also his own joy of creation.