Volker uses still life to convey conceptual portraiture by depicting items which either display a narrative or some form of identity in an abstract way, such as a half used tube of pharmacutical cream, some used plasters, disembodied features or obscured faces, a collection of books or a splatter of unknown substance. He was born in Kronach, Germany, and studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf which later lead him to become a professor of painting at the Kunstakademie Münster.
He uses paint and brush stroke in a way which is both spontaneous and precise, and displays skill by capturing items notorious as being accessible only to the most proficient still life painters such as flesh, hair, glass and liquids, often isolated against a poignant block colour background. This was one of the features that attracted me to his work, as I think it draws similarities with my own more illustrative/graphic style, with links to Pop Art, and also is reminiscent of the way wheatpastes are isolated imagery against a background. He also sometimes uses roughly painted background shapes to draw emphasis to certain areas of a painting (see cocktail painting below), such as I use geometric pattern to draw emphasis on natural form in my own work. I also like the alternative idea of identity his work presents, and the concept of capturing the essence of being without actually representing a portrait in itself.
He will also paint a series of objects at a time, analysing their form closely and meditating on their nature, so in many ways his work could also have been linked to my OBJECT workshop. A press release from GrimmRosenfeld below examines the interconnected way in which Volker merges subject and craft and examines the dialogue between the two.
He will also paint a series of objects at a time, analysing their form closely and meditating on their nature, so in many ways his work could also have been linked to my OBJECT workshop. A press release from GrimmRosenfeld below examines the interconnected way in which Volker merges subject and craft and examines the dialogue between the two."Völker's pictures, despite what is represented in them, are about the medium of painting itself. He is more interested in the way paint depicts rather than the way it can be made to narrate or conjure relatedness to history or nature. His preference for mundane subjects allows a disconnect from figuration in order to experiment with the physicality of paint, and the way that it is manipulated by an artist's hand. In the same manner as Wayne Thiebaud or David Hockney employ the vocabulary of painting for a simplified representation, Völker uses simplified representation to discuss the vocabulary of painting.
Völker's understanding of this relationship-material, gesture-provides us an entrée into his unique, simultaneous utilization of figuration and abstraction. Intelligent modeling of bodies breaks into exquisite, abstracted bursts of color and back again."
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