Stefan Lenke

In his new works Stefan Lenke consequently develops the pictorial modus of a manifold entanglement and over-layering of different fragments of form, he constructively pushes lines and colours further. The formerly produced interchange between closed space and illusive depth through opaque and glazed application of colour that only went onto canvas has now started to spread since some into the real space. The first step in this direction was marked by stapled cubes that looked like a tower, whose sides were painted the same way and which due to their three-dimensionality enlarged the potential to create a visible speculative inter-changing relation between area and expanse. Since this change the paintings of Lenke are not only bound to one image. Many of the recent works are put together out of two, three or four parallel developing modules which interact with one another and form imaginary links to all directions. Such considerations take concrete form when the canvases are combined with coloured or painted wooden elements next or beside one another, or when the adjacent wall is painted as part of the »image«. Most recently Lenke also integrates graphically reproduced image segments in his compositions. Wall, wood and paper serving as bases for paintings also modify the appearance and impact of colour according to their specific characteristics of material. The starting point of Lenke’s paintings are still visual impulses of surfaces within our surroundings. His increased interest of architectural structures is mirrored in his cumulative treatment of serial grids and patterns. Within the continued flexible handling of his material Stefan Lenke is looking for the balance between the romantic imagination of images and the perception of images in the 21^st century with the help of his pictorial-installative montages and moves therein between aesthetic gratification and intellectual scepticism.

Mathias Wagner