The desire to collect and archive, the joy of combining and experimenting characterizes Paul Thierry as well as the constant impulse to question established norms and conventional artistic techniques and to explore new potential.

Until 2010, the artist, born in 1960 in Dramatal near Gleiwitz (Upper Silesia/Poland), signed his works with "Peter Bednorz" and celebrated great national and international success as a pop art artist.

In 2000 he shone  public broadcaster TVP Polonia broadcast an artist portrait of Bednorz. In 2006, the German federal government acquired the work “Berlin”, which the artist had dedicated to the topic of “reunification”, through the agency of the Federal Foreign Office. It has also recently been included in the collection of the Liesborn Abbey Museum in the district of Warendorf (North Rhine-Westphalia); the world-famous 7-star hotel in Dubai, the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah, also acquired a large-scale work from him.

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As early as 2005, Peter Bednorz, who united painters and graphic artists just as confidently as he did the draftsman and object artist, discovered the previously unknown medium of the monotype.

From now on it will take up all his attention. In the last century, in the field of lithography, the universal genius Pablo Picasso succeeded in dealing with an artistic process that was established in art history but had fallen into oblivion.

For Paul Thierry it is the medium of the monotype that continually inspires and stimulates him. In the meantime, there was no concrete trigger for the turn, rather it is the result of spontaneous, random experiments in the studio and thus once again proof of his openness and his will to creative freedom. It is well known that Thierry is an extremely productive and disciplined art innovator who does not shy away from the “horror vacui” (Latin: empty space). Not a day in the life of Paul Thierry goes by without passionately dealing with all conceivable forms of art design or, as we do with Pliny the Elder. can read in an anecdote about the painter Apelles: "Nulla dies sine linea" -  No day be without a line!

In other words: not a day goes by without useful activity – with Paul Thierry one would have to add: not a day without experiments!

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With the monotype he enters an unknown field, a terra incognita, to which he refers artistically in view of his intensive examination. Along with the "discovery" the decision to change the name was made, the reasons for which are both biographical and artistic in nature. Paul is his middle name, while Thierry seems closely related to the Latin word "terra" (earth). Already as a child he loved to build labyrinths in the deep earth and create sand sculptures there; he was only 10 years old and it testifies to his pronounced curiosity and longing to recognize things, to understand them and to literally "get to the bottom" of them - a quality that distinguishes him as a creator and characterizes his artistic activities to this day .

From now on it is the medium of the monotype, which he illuminates and explores in its technical, formal and artistic refinements.

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The process originally comes from Italy and was developed by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1616-1670). With the monotype ("an image") only a single impression is produced; instead of paper or canvas, the usual image carriers, a glass or acrylic plate is used. As long as the paint is still wet, the artist prints the motif reversed on the paper with a press or by hand rubbing. The monotype can thus be clearly identified as an original, as it only allows for this one print (a few more are lighter due to the loss of color).

With conventional printing processes (e.g. etching or lithography) it is possible to produce an edition, ie a certain number of almost identical images. If Thierry now turns to an old technique, then this should not be seen as an indication of a lack of creative sovereignty, but rather its opposite: it is checked for its validity and topicality, the modern artist is confronted with a medium that used to be popular in the 18th century. and 19th century found its application.

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Paul Thierry is now adding new aspects to the process and extracting undreamt-of potential from the process. In this way, he transfers the monotype into the 21st century in a more or less modernized way. For example, he works with light effects or sometimes staggers up to four acrylic panels in a row; He also combines the process on acrylic plates with the classic canvas, in that both picture carriers are provided with motifs from his gigantic archive of picture templates and then mounted at a certain distance from each other. In doing so, the artist juggles both colored surfaces and graphic structures, which, when superimposed, ultimately result in the complete, complex picture. The staggering of the picture carriers transforms the originally two-dimensional picture into a seemingly object-like three-dimensional work of art. 

The process, or rather the translucent effect, evokes images of the tomography or cross-sectional images that a computer tomograph or a magnetic resonance tomograph produces of different body regions, such as an organ or joints. In view of the transparency, the artist literally makes his motifs "shine" and skilfully contrasts graphic lineament with painterly color surfaces. Thierry can therefore be considered the innovator and revolutionary of the monotype, since no artist has devoted himself to this process as intensively and innovatively as he has.

His works can now be admired in the NL Gallery Salzburg.

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