Martin Kobe
18 Sep - 14 Nov 2009
MARTIN KOBE
18 September - 14 November 2009
The exhibition features selected works from 2008 and 2009. Intact constructions and architectural spaces of earlier works are painterly blasted away, revealing numerous cracks and fractures.
Kobe's paintings build on each other organically over a long period of time. In a process of continuous addition and removal, different works evolve simultaneously. Kobe works with similar motives in different scales and from various perspectives, interconnecting and cross-referencing the individual canvases with each other.
There is a constant tension between the single fields and lines in the paintings that are always increased and set free gradually at the moment of highest suspense.
Kobe builds up architectural skeletons by use of deep perspective, dynamic diagonals, vanishing points, and an intense palette. With surgical precision he examines, dissects, and dyes the image sphere — then breaks it up again by creating large passages of washed out palette and soaked contours that deride the central perspective. Single elements of the paintings threaten to break apart, the massive becomes unstable and the viewer’s focus begins to blur.
Martin Kobe was born in Dresden in 1973 and studied at the Academy of Visual Art in Leipzig. He was awarded the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff scholarship in 2004/05 and exhibited in numerous international Institutions and Museums. Solo exhibitions include “The Centre Cannot Hold” at the Dresden State Art Collections and “Behind True Symmetry” at White Cube Gallery in London, both in 2007. The Domus Artium in Salamanca presented Kobe's work in “Other Monuments” in early 2009.
18 September - 14 November 2009
The exhibition features selected works from 2008 and 2009. Intact constructions and architectural spaces of earlier works are painterly blasted away, revealing numerous cracks and fractures.
Kobe's paintings build on each other organically over a long period of time. In a process of continuous addition and removal, different works evolve simultaneously. Kobe works with similar motives in different scales and from various perspectives, interconnecting and cross-referencing the individual canvases with each other.
There is a constant tension between the single fields and lines in the paintings that are always increased and set free gradually at the moment of highest suspense.
Kobe builds up architectural skeletons by use of deep perspective, dynamic diagonals, vanishing points, and an intense palette. With surgical precision he examines, dissects, and dyes the image sphere — then breaks it up again by creating large passages of washed out palette and soaked contours that deride the central perspective. Single elements of the paintings threaten to break apart, the massive becomes unstable and the viewer’s focus begins to blur.
Martin Kobe was born in Dresden in 1973 and studied at the Academy of Visual Art in Leipzig. He was awarded the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff scholarship in 2004/05 and exhibited in numerous international Institutions and Museums. Solo exhibitions include “The Centre Cannot Hold” at the Dresden State Art Collections and “Behind True Symmetry” at White Cube Gallery in London, both in 2007. The Domus Artium in Salamanca presented Kobe's work in “Other Monuments” in early 2009.