Thomas Arnolds

RUN (Disegno und Farbe)

Klemm’s is pleased to present RUN (disegno+Farbe), the first solo exhibition by Thomas Arnolds in the gallery.

Thomas Arnolds was born in 1975 in Geilenkirchen, Germany. He lives in Cologne, Germany. Originally trained as a stonemason and sculptor, Arnolds studied with Walter Dahn at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Braunschweig.

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 column arrangements. 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. The fundamental meaning of ‚matter color‘ remains constant, which Arnolds always knows how to use in its deep quality between materiality and volume, between symbolism and metaphysical aspects.

Thomas Arnolds has created a set of instruments that are as precise as they can be used variably, a ‚free set of rules‘ between intellect and gut feeling, reflection and anarchy, with which he pushes his oeuvre forward as a radical proposal on painting.

Under the title RUN (Disegno and Color), Arnolds has now assembled a series of large-format works that represent the beginning of a new group of works. On 2 panels each, he lets oversized figurations collide with radically contrasting fields of color; fine, graphic painting in conflict with opaque or coarse style surfaces. Arnolds consequently opens up new painterly terrain and combines this step with a narrative, personal and content-related dimension that he brings convincingly to the canvas.

… vanitas – Pop – disegno – hard-edge – surface – signal – soft-focus – larger than life – no coincidence – pressure – quote – message – persona – risk – ? – ! … the bow is stretched.