Time is certainly one of Max Frintrop's working materials.
"Not only in the sense that it should be used as efficiently as possible, but also that artistic decisions need to be made exactly at the right moment," said the German painter dedicated to abstract expressionism.
His art revolves around fundamental questions of order within chaos, manifestation of colour through light and how fleeting moments can be measured or captured, particularly in paintings on huge canvases.
A collaboration with Moritz Grossmann, the Art Edition Max Frintrop collection presents a mille-feuille of superimposed paint glazes on the faces of 16 one-of-a kind timepieces.
The mesmerising dials are actually crafted from fragments of the top layer of his studio floor, which is an artistic expression in itself.
"I often used liquid paint that splashed onto the floor and dried there as I painted. Over the years, the studio floor gained its patina and a geological-like structure revealing an extremely unique colouring and presence," explained Frintrop.
"You could say it serves as an archaeological account of how my painting and artworks have developed over time. It's a really fascinating transformation, which also functions as a clear metaphor of time in painting."
Visitors to his studio had even asked for a section of the fetching floor but Frintrop refused giving them a keepsake.
"I always said no, because it would have to be transferred to another media in order to enable the creation of a deeply conscious new artwork from a random byproduct of painting," he said. "That is precisely what we have achieved with this transfer -- from floor to wafer-thin watch dial. Much more than a randomly beautiful visual pattern, every dial makes an artistic statement of its own."
The Art Edition Max Frintrop collection is curated by Olaf Salié, who introduced Moritz Grossmann to the contemporary artist based in Düsseldorf.
The independent brand is named after a visionary horologist, who established an atelier in Glashütte in 1854 and initiated the German School of Watchmaking in this Saxon village in 1878.
CEO Christine Hutter revived her horological traditions, and since 2008 the company has followed her credo in crafting the "simple but mechanically perfect watch".
On the artistic collaboration, Hutter said: "I was fascinated by the aspect of refining something seemingly mundane. A studio floor that is walked and worked on every day is transferred onto a watch dial, thus converting it into a highly valuable object."
When preparing to move to a new studio in 2024, Frintrop managed to save and preserve a few square centimetres of the floor's incidental artwork for the exceptional watchmaking project.
The challenge was to precisely remove the paint layers, and subsequently, they had to be flattened on the underside and placed on the base dials.
"As if by magic, the surface of the floor was reduced to a thickness of half-a-millimetre in the dial, and yet the top layer of dried paint resembles a lunar surface covered in craters -- a symbol of both transience and endurance," said Frintrop.
The surface fragments were used to fashion 16 dials that are paired with a rose gold or stainless-steel case with a diameter of 41mm for the Art Edition Max Frintrop collection.
The special-edition watches are worn with a Kudu leather strap in a colour that highlights the intensity of each dial. In addition, Frintrop's signature is discretely engraved on the sapphire-crystal caseback, which reveals the manual-winding calibre 100.1 with a power reserve of 42 hours.
A unique piece in stainless steel from the Art Edition Max Frintrop collection.
Dial with the superimposed paint glazes reminiscent of geological substrates.
Sapphire-crystal caseback with an engraving of Max Frintrop's signature.
The dials make their own artistic statement.
