Bielefelder Kunstverein

Thomas Kratz thinks of himself as a painter first and foremost. His work develops out of fundamental themes from the histories of art and of contemporary affairs and out of the conditions governing colour, form and material and it denotes the conscious juxtaposition of artistic concepts. Most recently, his work has been marked by an intensive concern with portraits and with representing human skin tones. In this process, Kratz understands the unprimed, open-pored canvas as a membrane. It defines the boundaries between inside and outside, image and viewer, figuration and abstraction. And at the same time, it renders these things fluid. In addition, Kratz creates sculptures and performances, which appear to contrast with his painterly work, but only at first glance. He has a particular penchant for elevating everyday objects into cultic ones and for reinterpreting iconographic figures, in order to integrate them into his own ritualistic, and in part surrealistic, games in space. For the exhibition in the Bielefelder Kunstverein, he is developing a series of new paintings and sculptures, which take his thematic involvement with the image of the body further.