Description

Joining handcrafted materiality to the random nature of industrial production, the work of German painter Thomas Kratz explores fundamental themes from the history of art and of contemporary life, and the conditions governing color, form and material. Both representational and purely abstract; minimalist and flat, and yet layered, his paintings define the boundaries between inside and outside, image and viewer, figuration and abstraction, treating the unprimed, porous canvas as a membrane. In addition, Kratz creates sculptures and performances in which everyday items become objects of worship to be incorporated in his own ritualistic, sometimes surreal games in space. Published to accompany his solo show “Love” at the Bielefelder Kunstverein, Berlin, the book details the new paintings and murals created for the exhibition, investigating ways that painting can be presented in keeping with the times and can form an intense dialogue with the architectural space.