LUKAS DUWENHÖGGER | Promises, Promises

Galerie Buchholz, Cologne
Acquired from the above by the present owner 

London, Raven Row, Lukas Duwenhögger: You Might Become a Park, June - September 2016

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly lighter and brighter in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Very close inspection reveals some minute media accretions in isolated places throughout. Close inspection reveals some very fine hairline cracks, media accretions and specks of loss to the artist's frame in places. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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“Though its scope embraces more and less compelling moments, the resounding impression of Duwenhögger’s art is a series of wonders: moments all the stranger and more marvelous for partaking of the ordinary” (Matthew Mclean, ‘Lukas Duwenhögger Frieze Review’, Raven Row, 2016, online). An array of environments span this iconic collection from the ‘speculative environments’ of Caragh Thuring’s art to the changing seasons of David Hockney’s iPad drawings. Within these different landscapes appear nods to Surrealism and Minimalism, all collected with a distinct attention to material and composition.

The architectural nature of Caragh Thuring’s Physologie de la Toilette and Carol Rama’s Luogo e Segni, Ancora boast a fascinating conversation. Rama’s unique incorporation of construction materials – metal shavings, rubber, valves – is mirrored in the structural vignettes on Thuring’s canvas. Painting directly on raw linen, Thuring creates her speculative environments, which ask the viewer to recruit their imagination and seek their own meaning in what they see. Her works showcase an ongoing fascination with the mechanics behind construction, cranes and wires burst through into the vignettes. Whilst Rama draws on the environment of her childhood within the factory; her father was a manufacturer in the engineering industry. Both Rama and Thuring treat the canvas as a blueprint, constructing unique architectural environments, transcending the limitations of paint.

Works by David Hockney and Thilo Heinzmann represent new paths for material and creation. In The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 - 23 April, David Hockney embraces technology, the iPad screen becomes the new canvas, the digital strokes of the finger replace the paintbrush. Whilst Thilo Heinzmann breaks down material to its original form in O. T., he disperses the pigment over the canvas to leave an imprint – colour in its purest form. The collection seamlessly ties together formal and technological innovations that push the boundaries of painting.

Lukas Duwenhögger’s Promises, Promises and Carol Rama’s Maschere reveal surrealist worlds, creatures that excite and intrigue. Duwenhögger’s scene contains an enchanting juxtaposition; a sumptuous seascape envelops the background, but at the forefront the two figures are depicted with bizarre bodily proportions. Whilst Carol Rama’s painting fuses a surrealist scenario with distinctly avant-garde brushwork both artists combine technical skill with a constant urge to push their themes into captivating new territories.