In his most recent works, the artist reinforces this impression of a forest structure that has not grown exclusively through natural means through the use of spray paint, which he uses - as in a real forest - as a kind of marker and cryptic language. The titles of the works refer to this approach, but at the same time they are also descriptions of work and process, because the remaining material on the canvas surface can also be interpreted as 'stock' after appropriate thinning. Jens Rausch also occasionally uses telephone directories for his forest works. As is well known, these not only originate materially from the forests, but also refer to the use of the German language, which also repeatedly has connections to the forest: origins, rooting and uprooting, etc. Last but not least, the family tree is a metaphor for a growing family history that is constantly branching out and ramifying. The artist uses individual telephone book pages here in a multi-layered application: he erases individual components through the use of fire, layers them up and down and thus metaphysically interweaves the various levels, which can thus be interpreted in a wide variety of ways. The use of a telephone directory, which actually still exists and is still used in Germany, seems almost anachronistic in a time of increasing digitalization; and as an immense collection of data, it also refers to our own existence in a time that seems to be increasingly uprooting us from the analogue world.

Andreas Herrmann