Helmut Dorner
De Brock is pleased to present its third solo exhibition with Helmut Dorner. Featuring a new suite of acrylic paintings on canvas or wood panel, this exhibition is the latest demonstration of Dorner’s prominence as an abstract painter, a movement of which he has been a significant proponent since the mid-1980s.
Having originally studied under Gerhard Richter at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf between 1976 and 1982, Dorner quickly established himself as a eminent voice in post-modern European abstraction, solidified with the artists inclusion in the ninth edition of the prestigious documenta quinquennial (Germany, 1992) curated by Jan Hoet. While his early paintings were marked by dark tones; a tendency towards geometricism; and a sculptural surface built-up by thickly applied impasto oil on hand-cut wooden supports, these recent acrylic works are rendered in a softer palette of pastel shades and almost approach representation in their resolute abstraction.
Dorner has always maintained a slow process of painting, with the layering of acrylic paint essential to achieve his semi-translucent surfaces, the time and labour of making evident across the canvas expanse. A famously reticent artist - who abstains from interviews and rarely speaks directly about his own practice - his paintings avoid any didactic interpretation, avowing instead to the most earnest and honest intention of abstract painting. They welcome the viewer to engage in a purely visual experience, one that evokes emotion and awakens the senses.
The artist’s titles, therefore, are perhaps the only additional information with which to interpret the paintings. Here, Chrysanthemum, the flowering plant and Iberic, the Spanish pig, elicit modest, quotidian imagery. Dorner has long embraced the influence of external forces, with the changing seasons, lux of daylight and passing of time itself as important as his own personal emotions and opinions.
Since 1989 Dorner has been Professor of Painting at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste (Karlsruhe, Germany). Important institutional solo exhibitions include Kunstmuseum Winterthur (Switzerland, 2006), Josef Albers Museum (Germany, 2006), Saarland Museum (Germany, 2006), Carré d'Art, Musée d'art contemporain de Nîmes (France, 1991) and Kunsthalle Bern (Switzerland, 1990). His work resides in the public collections of Centre Pompidou (Paris), Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Ghent), Centro Cultural Arte Contemporaneo (Mexico City), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid) and more.
The opening reception will be held on March 9 from noon till 3 pm, please email us for more information.
