Norbert Schwontkowski

In his drawings and paintings, Norbert Schwontkowski does not explore the path to abstract visualization and instead has discernible objects and figures emerge from the foundation to the images he creates. He records the world and the seemingly vacuous side to everyday life in fragmentary excerpts, and on even the smallest of canvases proves to be a great storyteller. The focus is on human weaknesses and rashness, human inadequacies and the paralysis of existence, but often he also addresses the small moments of movements and happiness. Many of his images are defined by melancholy and yearning, and yet he forever undermines this with humor, such as arises first and foremost from the interaction of pictorial idea and work title. Alongside oil, crayon, water and pigment, Schwontkowski often also adds metal oxides to his pictures, something that can lead to unforeseen changes to the color. In a wet-in-wet process, initially many layers of color and paint are superimposed, and thus a kind of horizontal foundation is laid. The use of metal oxides resembles photographic and film processes in terms of the art’s sensitivity to light. Part of the painting process is left to chemistry, which cannot be controlled, and thus to chance. Schwontkowski makes deliberate use of these arbitrary and surprising effects. The images continue to morph, changing their colors with each day anew. The result are at times impasto, at times fluid surfaces, often shimmering with a vibrancy in a sea of colors associated with the season from November to February. LINK Norbert Schwontkowski