Thomas Arnolds

In his work, Thomas Arnolds pursues the fundamental interest in constantly re-exploring the possibilities and conditions of painting. In doing so, he develops a complex and at the same time consistent position that negotiates central issues of the medium in a coherent balance of at first glance contradicting designs: abstraction vs. figuration; minimal vs. gestural; space vs. image; surface vs. matter or hard-edge vs. free duct-drawing… the essence of his paintings lies in their surprising but always concise combination.

The visual vocabulary manifests itself as broadly as it is consistent – interiors, tool fragments, and banal everyday objects meet crude bonsai arrangements, architectural forms, or the iconography of ancient columns. The correct representation of the selected image content is of secondary importance, rather the motifs serve as placeholders or a pure ‘occasion’ to step in front of the canvas at all. Arnolds always works in series, but deliberately does not develop his work linearly in clearly defined groups of works. Based on an initial, conceptual outlining, what has already been introduced is mixed up in the process and is confronted with new technology or changed painterly access.