Benedikt Leonhardt is our Emerging Artist of the Week

With our Emerging artist of the week series we feature up-and-coming artists whose works caught our eyes. Benedikt Leonhardt is a German artist with a minimal line. His works on canvas are subtly full of light and details. We talked with him about his new white series and what his formation taught him.

 

How do you describe your art to somebody who has never seen one of your work?
In my painting I’m working with figurative stimuli being overlaid by complex constructions of lines, translucent colors and surface material.

My materials range from oil, acrylic and vinyl paints to pencils,crayons, adhesive tape and acrylic filler.

The process, materiality, randomness and openness play an important role in my work. The intrinsic value of the material and the language it speaks should be the real subject of the picture.

The original idea that inspires the act of painting is broken up through the refractoriness of the materials and the internal logic of the production process. When working on a painting, random and unexpected developments often occur. It is during the realization of the piece that the actual communication between the painting and myself begins.

Where did you study?
I studied under Astrid Klein at the Academy of Fine Arts (HGB) in Leipzig from 2007 to 2014, and am currently a Master’s student in her class. In 2012, I completed a period of study abroad at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design in Norway.

What did university and your professors give to you?
The strong academic training at the Academy of Fine Arts (HGB) taught me the classical painting techniques. This was elemental and formative for me. Still benefitting from it in my current work, I can relatively accurately implement the ideas that I have with this knowledge.

Still the major part of my practice is occupied by experimentations, especially in regards to the combination of different materials.Despite experimenting my training gave me a basic understanding of materials and techniques that I can always refer to. Moreover, I learned a lot from my professor about failure and how to deal with it. You can try a lot but you also critically have to take in consideration your own work and its potential.

What are you currently working on?
Lately I have been working a lot with the colour white. The white works are made from many different layers and overlays of different materials in different textures and thicknesses.

Layers of material that give structure to the painting are painted over by thin but intensive colour glazes and overlaid with semi-transparent to opaque white layers.The idea behind it is that the colour is only subtly shown through the above-lying layers.The actual image is created by the addition of different layers, which form an overall image in the eye of the viewer. The picture in its entirety should not be detectable at first sight, but should only divulge its complete range after a prolonged view.

Who are your three artists to watch?
Robert Ryman, Agnes Martin and Florian Hesselbarth.

What does your artist career look like in five years?
I invest my energy and passion in the present. In the „here and now“.

 

 

 

UNTITLED (WF-B-QM/V-1), 2015, 58,9 x 48,9 cm, acrylic, vinyl, pencil, tape and filler on canvas, Photo: Sophia Kesting

UNTITLED (CO-M-M-U), 2014, 45,7 x 43,7 cm,oil, acrylic, pencil and filler on canvas (installation view Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin) Photo: Sophia Kesting

 

 

 

 

 

 

See also Benedikt Leonhardt

Emanuel Rodriguez is our Emerging artist of the Week

 

With an academics, introspective and theoretical approach to art, the young artist interrogates the ways of producing as well as the ways of displaying art. We sat down and talked his semiotics reaching, formation and future.

 

How do you describe your art to somebody who has never seen one of your work?
At the moment I am very interested in the processes in which images trigger certain messages, narratives or meanings or how we think they work. And how we manipulate these processes in order to create other meanings and to link knowledge. Various authors and philosophers like Hans Belting, WJT Mitchell and even German Art Historian Aby Warburg have said that images work as a kind of language, one that we yet don´t know how to use properly, we think we know, but actually there is a kind of semiotics within images that we haven´t been able to decipher yet. There is a link between images, not a link of similarity but a link of missing pieces, let’s put it like that. I am also interested in the language of painting itself, the tradition behind it, and the long history of the medium, one that is totally connected to images or image making.

So a simple way to describe what I do would be, that I try ‘through the medium of painting’ to establish relations between certain processes of images’ manipulation and certain philosophical issues, like iconoclasm, destruction and montage. I am very interested in the way we display artworks and how this motivates various different ways to read an image.

Where did you study?
I did my Bachelor and Honours in Fine Arts at the University of Costa Rica, undertook a two years DAAD scholarship at the Kunsthochschule Weißensee Berlin and am currently undertaking an MFA at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, Australia.

What did university and your professors give to you?
I have been very lucky to have very critical professors throughout my formal education, as well as people who work outside the academy. At the moment I am very happy with the supervisor I have for my masters, Sanja Pahoki. I’m very interested in the way she tries to create spaces within her exhibitions and I find her work relevant to my current research.

What are you currently working on?
I am undertaking an MFA (Research) at the VCA in Melbourne, Australia.

What are your three artists to watch?
Jeremy Shaw, Victor Man and Peter Puklus.

What will your artist career look like in five years?
I have no idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See also Emanuel Rodriguez

 

German artist Benjamin Zibner is our Emerging Artist of the Week

Through photography the artist captures disregarded compositions of the everyday life providing a new perspective. We had the pleasure to talk about his current work entitled Bubblegum Alley, his path and his future plans.

 

How do you describe your art to somebody who has never seen one of your works?
Benjamin Zibner: I work with photography questioning the documental ascription of photography. My series Rites de Passage shows this in the most obvious way. For it I took photos of the German youth, hanging out in the streets. They appear to be a real documentation on kids in the streets, which they are in a way. But they knew that they were photographed. In that specific moment they pose or behave in the way they would like to be seen on a picture. Here the word ritual becomes elementary.

How does rituals impact on your works?
BZ: Rituals are another important aspect in my work. My work Bubblegum Alley is a prime example for this. It appears to be a brick wall full of bubble-gum sticking on it. Besides the upcoming questions of how and why, the act of sticking one’s bubble-gum on a wall where already millions of them are, is a form of ritual act. Which seems somehow meta–religious to me. So my interest lies within this form of human rituals and mostly in its visual blossoms.

Where did you study?
BZ: I studied at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen.

What did university and your professors give to you?
BZ: University gave me a better understanding of what works and why. The course situation was a good field to put my own work onto discussion. Here you have to give answers to your fellow students and professors and receive instant feedback. This was really helpful. The best part was the area of the printing laboratory, which is, when you study photography, somehow the uterus of the university. And here is where the informal talks happen. These conversations with the fellow students through all grades and the lab staff where sometimes more enlightening than professorial guidance.

What are you currently working on?
BZ: Right now I am working on two things. One is my portfolio to acquire paid photography jobs. The other is a work which I carry with me since several years. Last year, I finished the first piece of it. Which is the aforementioned Bubblegum Alley that I photographed in San Louis Obispo, California. The Bubblegum Alley is made of approximately 100 single shots of the Alleys Wall, stitched together into a single photo. It measures 2,70 meter by 1,25 meter. By now the whole edition is sold, which gives me the impression that either my art dealer did her job well or the piece was really good. Or both. I feel that it is a right track for me, so now I am planning to shoot the next subject on my list.

What are your three artists to watch?
BZ: Daniel Arnold, Torbjorn Rodland, and Regine Petersen.

What does your artist career look like in five years?
BZ: I am really impressed by Jürgen Teller, how he combines the spheres of art with commercial aspects. My goal is to achieve a point where I have enough time to work on my art and be inquired commercially for my body of work.

Benjamin Zibner, Bubblegum Alley, 125 x 268 cm, 2015.

Benjamin Zibner, Rites de Passage 01

 

 

 

 

 

See more of his work at Benjamin Zibner