Peter Schmersal - Flowers
16 Jan - 28 Feb 2009
Tulip, Lilac, Laburnum and Anthurie are just a small selection of floral species in Peter Schmersals recent work, which will be on view from the 16th of January onwards at Gallery Karsten Greve.
In addition to portraits, nudes and landscape paintings for more than 20 years floral still lifes are part of Schmersals’ oeuvre. Working directly in front of the motif the artist translates the observed into painting by transferring the flowers simplified to canvas using a pastose colour application and an extremely pronounced stroke. This seemingly spontaneous style gives the floral figures a special vibrancy and intensity, which is strengthened by rhythmized strokes and their arrangement in circles, wavy or spiral lines. Schmersal often choses an exceptional picture detail or an irritating outlook, which dares the viewer and makes him put a new complexion on the daily and ordinary motif.
As Schmersals floral paintings offer a high orientation by nature concerning materiality and colour, a turning towards reducing his pictorial language to abstraction – particularly with regard to the composition of the paintings - can be noticed in his recent work. The above-mentioned composition follows geometric basic patterns in the background, which is overlaid by naturalistic flower-motives. This method can be seen in the work Kastanie-Iris, which consists of four rectangular fields in different colours, overlaid by diagonal crossing branches. In the work Flieder gentle, airy lilac blossoms contrast with luminous pink and red horizontal stripes arranged in two panels. An analogue composition is shown in the painting Anthurie. The background is subdivided in two different coloured fields. Above the centre axis five blossoms of Anthurie - arranged one below the other - seem to hover. In this work Schmersal uses a spraying technique, fading the hard contrasts between back - and foreground as well as the exactly worked out lines of the blossoms, which finally create a surrealistic impression.
Peter Schmersal was born in 1952 in Wuppertal. Gallery Karsten Greve presented his works in 1990 the first time. The artist achieved international recognition through exhibitions in German museums and abroad. Multilingual catalogues were published in 1990 and 1999. The artist currently lives and works in Wuppertal and Berlin.
In addition to portraits, nudes and landscape paintings for more than 20 years floral still lifes are part of Schmersals’ oeuvre. Working directly in front of the motif the artist translates the observed into painting by transferring the flowers simplified to canvas using a pastose colour application and an extremely pronounced stroke. This seemingly spontaneous style gives the floral figures a special vibrancy and intensity, which is strengthened by rhythmized strokes and their arrangement in circles, wavy or spiral lines. Schmersal often choses an exceptional picture detail or an irritating outlook, which dares the viewer and makes him put a new complexion on the daily and ordinary motif.
As Schmersals floral paintings offer a high orientation by nature concerning materiality and colour, a turning towards reducing his pictorial language to abstraction – particularly with regard to the composition of the paintings - can be noticed in his recent work. The above-mentioned composition follows geometric basic patterns in the background, which is overlaid by naturalistic flower-motives. This method can be seen in the work Kastanie-Iris, which consists of four rectangular fields in different colours, overlaid by diagonal crossing branches. In the work Flieder gentle, airy lilac blossoms contrast with luminous pink and red horizontal stripes arranged in two panels. An analogue composition is shown in the painting Anthurie. The background is subdivided in two different coloured fields. Above the centre axis five blossoms of Anthurie - arranged one below the other - seem to hover. In this work Schmersal uses a spraying technique, fading the hard contrasts between back - and foreground as well as the exactly worked out lines of the blossoms, which finally create a surrealistic impression.
Peter Schmersal was born in 1952 in Wuppertal. Gallery Karsten Greve presented his works in 1990 the first time. The artist achieved international recognition through exhibitions in German museums and abroad. Multilingual catalogues were published in 1990 and 1999. The artist currently lives and works in Wuppertal and Berlin.