Thoralf Knobloch: Paradox as Creative Rupture Wilkinson gallery 2 Sep - 2 Oct 2011 By Nathan Eastwood

Installation shot: 2011 A distinctive painter, Thoralf Knobloch trained at Dresden school of art, and has for nearly a decade built a body of work that on first sight could be described a realist painting; well, look again. Using a camera, Knobloch gathers his source material which will eventually feed in to motifs for subsequent paintings. His subjects: shopping bags, childrens toys, dustbins, traffic signs and anonymous empty urban spaces that conj our up a feeling of dj vu are never socialist realist. His works could be described as quiet observations of things in a state of entropy, revealing a sense of something catastrophic having taken place, a trace of human presence. These depictions never pertain to idyllic sentiment but instead appear to be apocalyptic, bearing a subtle uneasiness of atmosphere as can be recognised in the film The Last Man on Earth (1964). Set in the aftermath of an unnamed catastrophe which killed off all humans apart from the a forenamed Last man of the title is left wandering the desolate city streets, but as the story goes on to unfold we find he is not actually alone. MAKE CONNECTIONS WITH FILM While the banality of everyday trashy items have become the artists starting point in making a painting: Lichtleitbake, 2011, Feldscheune, 2011, Zwei Spiegel, seitwrts, 2011, Prellbock, 2011; Knoblochs paintings resonate with thought provoking layers of aesthetic complexity; they are rich in looseness, with highly detailed elements and pictorial vibrancy. They are clearly a painterly translation of photographs into paint but as a painted image they sit between abstraction and realism. In terms of methodology it could be agreed on, that his paintings are not in the category of traditional figurative painting i.e. the artist does not sit within a specific locality and sketch what he sees, as an empirical or epistemological exercise. Knoblochs paintings are not actually representing the real world as in a mirror-like effect, but rather receives his aesthetic information from an archive of photographs which reflect a so-called truth to

reality, in the form of a trace of the real. They contain no near closeness, no accurate approximation of a photo but Knobloch uses his photographic image as a platform, a vehicle, where he can explore the potentiality of painting and its material possibilities - as a formalist. To read Knobloch paintings one has realise that the paintings operate in the premise of paradox and contradiction concerning his aesthetics and conceptual use of opposites: Knoblochs paintings embracing two opposites, ; the aesthetics of abstraction and realism. Historically these two aesthetics have been in contrast, in opposition, two separate practices with their own philosophical infrastructures. One can see in Knoblochs canvases that these two opposite poles have become a symbiosis, one needing the other. Knoblochs paintings could be seen as operating in a space of revolt against the Greenberg aesthetic dogma (an aesthetic divorced from realism and illusionism in favour for form and flat surface) and creating a new painting process; the combining of two artistic models, but it is worth noting that this paradoxical proposition in Knoblochs paintings can be traced within the paintings of Matisse. As already proposed Knoblochs paintings could be described as functioning in opposites both aesthetically and conceptually. This proposition can read within his series of paintings, in which is evident that the gesture, and materiality of the painting is made clear through the painterly brushstrokes that float over hazy backgrounds, blurred contours lines, with slashes of lines and thin layers of glazes, help to formulate an interesting mix of attract qualities. Knoblochs emphasis on abstraction can be even though of as, dare I say expressionist? Now if we further scrutinise these paintings we can see how the artist has cleverly created a space for its opposition: realist techniques which act as a creative tension. The painted objects that sit over the abstract areas; have been made with real attention to detail giving way to realism. Geometric lines (confidently drawn out over the canvas creating interesting over lapping compositions) perspectival complexity and dramatic shifts in focus has become Knoblochs aesthetic design, the images posses a sharp animated energy demonstrating that he has calculated the laying down of paint and where objects will be placed creating interesting compositions. As mentioned above Knoblochs painting techniques can be liken to that of Henri Matisse although Matisse brush strokes used were of wild colours (Fauvism) and that the pictorial design, the strong charcoal likes; these drawn lines reinforce pictorial forms, such as the human bodys to avoid complete disintegration. A rupture has happened in the conventional language of representational painting and created a new painting schema, where abstraction and representation can be seen as

symbiotic, almost functioning in aesthetic paradox or contradiction one can say that Knobloch (amongst other contemporary painters: Eberhard Havekost, Tim Eitel, and luc tuymans are a few examples) is operating in this new schema; he has become the postmodern quintessence of how painting can avoid being place into specific category, (abstraction, figurative, representational). Knoblochs inclination towards an abstraction, but maintaining a predominant realist position, has created a new painting schema within his work operating in a space of paradox and contradiction. What do I mean by, paradox as potential artistic schema? In use this premise, I am not restricting it to the painted aesthetics but have extended it to embrace the oppositions on the conceptual level, where the opposites of Greenbergs formalism and theories of realism can take on an interesting discourse for a potential new theoretical infrastructure. Boris Groys in his book The Communist Postscript discusses ideas around dialectical materialism a premise that strives for the unity and the conflict of opposites; so to apply and follow this rule in aesthetics is to operate and think in paradoxes. According to Groys formal logic evades contradiction and paradox which is the human essence. An artist operating in the field of two oppositions, switching ones mind from one aesthetic potential to another means that one has to think in opposites, to think in the philosophies of material dialectics. Groys has said that material dialectics thinks the unity of A and non-A; -the idea is to embrace the opposite and to think in opposites, so this proposes that one works with an opposite, NonA. The potential in working in opposites creates a position where the painter is operating in totality; a new artistic painting schema is now a new potential; but remember the painter (artist) should strive for even greater paradox. The principle of this paradox as premise can be seen within Knoblochs paintings as a whole and its this aesthetic and conceptual potentiality that makes his painting the more interesting and inspiring for other new painters.