Renaissance humanist representational art may not be to everybody's tastes, considering also the fact that many people nowadays - influenced by new media and technologies - have developed a passion for abstract or complex geometric art. If you like the genre, you'll be happy to hear that there are still a few weeks to enjoy Jens Wolf's striking geometries at the Ronchini Gallery in London (22 Dering Street; until 16th May).
Living and working in Berlin, the German artist graduated in 2001 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe under Helmut Dorner and Luc Tuymans. A key figure in the development of process art and from the same generation of artists such as Mark Grotjahn, Wolf has taken part in multiple solo and group exhibitions and his works are included in numerous permanent collections all over the world.
The exhibition at Ronchini's focuses on compositions revolving around varying shapes, at times more basic, at others more complex, based on shades such as white, red and black, or on more visually striking combinations of turquoise, lime and bright yellow.
The event also features new works, including two murals made with fabric and aluminum foil, nine paintings on plywood of varying size and colour, and one site-specific piece created for Ronchini.
Some of the pieces call to mind Josef Albers and Frank Stella's art; others point the visitors towards the principles of Constructivism.
But there is one key point that distinguishes Jens Wolf from other artists: Wolf deliberately adds slight imperfections to his works. In this way the artist finds in geometry - otherwise considered as a strict and rigid medium - a new kind of freedom.
The imperfections in Wolf's crisp angles and lines hint indeed at different dimensions behind those angles and shapes, colours, forms and lines.
Besides, the natural grain of the plywood - Wolf's main material of choice - creates contrasts with the smooth paint. Edges on lines are frayed and the sign of the artist's hand in the making of the work is visible in unpainted areas with pencil lines. Obvious signs of distress occur in areas where the paint has been partially chipped away to reveal the raw surface underneath.
Some of the abstract patterns and structures on display have a "projective quality" as they look as if they may jump out of the plywood; other complex and dynamic curvilinear shapes characterised by bold strokes appeal instead to calligraphy, cryptography and typography fans who are left to interpret and decode the works on display in this event.
"Jens Wolf has taken cold abstraction and added his own visual language to create contemporary works that have a sense of vulnerability and individual expression about them," Gallery founder Lorenzo Ronchini stated in an official press release. We can only add that we expect to see Wolf's visual language turning very soon into prints for some modernist fashion house's new collection or the artist disseminating his imperfect geometries on the set of some future catwalk show.
Image credits for this post
All images in this post Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery
1. Jens Wolf, 11.09, 2011, Acrylic on plywood, 80x60cm
2. Jens Wolf, 13., 2013, Acrylic on plywood, 80x60cm
3. Jens Wolf, 13.21, 2013, Acrylic on plywood, 80x60cm
4. Jens Wolf, 13.19, 2013, Acrylic on plywood, 80x60cm
5. Jens Wolf, 08.70, 2008, Acrylic on plywood, 234 x 172 cm
6. Jens Wolf, 08.74, 2008, Acrylic on plywood, 238x172cm
7. Jens Wolf, 10.13, 2010, Acrylic on plywood, 86x115cm
8. Jens Wolf, 09.82, 2009, Acrylic on plywood, 115x86cm
9. Jens Wolf, 09.07, 2009, Acrylic on plywood, 60 x 80 cm
10. Jens Wolf, 12.33, 2012, Acrylic on plywood, 115x86cm
11. Jens Wolf, 14.20, 2014, Acrylic on plywood, 190x140cm
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