Exhibition:
Gegenhochdoppel - Degenhard Andrulat

Primarily vertical lines and color gradients determine the pictorial structure in Andrulat's works. No brushstroke is placed at random, but always as a reaction to the preceding one. Successively, a pictorial environment is created in which every stroke and every nuance of color captures the painterly thought process of the artist. Horizontal elements are repeatedly added to the verticals, arranged in such a way as to supportively build up the vertical flow direction in the painting. The remarkable thing about Andrulat's way of painting, with many layers of color on top of each other, is that it creates conundrums of space and depth, so that it is difficult for the viewer to tell whether the green is applied over the yellow or the gray under the red, or the other way around. Colors condense in one space, only to disappear again in the other. This kind of color application emphasizes on the one hand the colors themselves and on the other hand the light conditions of the picture.

This observation can be seen particularly well in the painting "Double Grey Moved Golden Red". Vertically placed brushstrokes and elliptical spiral movements combine to form a vertically constructed painting. Green-gray, orange-red, white, and variegated dark gray hues accentuate, reinforce, and soften each other. Light-dark shadings and upward striving lines of movement arise. At the same time, a kind of suction emanates from the image, which ultimately also sets us as viewers in motion.

Degenhard Andrulat "notes" his walks through a city like Venice and its very specific architectural lines of flight in his sketchbooks. They can later be rediscovered in paintings such as "Blue Red, Double Offset." or "Ruby Offset Heliocöelin." And this is another peculiarity of the artist's work: the titles of the paintings always refer only to the painting process and in particular to the respective color mood. The paintings, however, are not to be understood as reproductions of concrete landscapes or places. Rather, Andrulat wants to use the stylistic means of painting to create images that define a horizon and thus contribute to his own positioning and self-assurance within this framework. Of course, it is left to the viewer to recognize landscapes such as densely overgrown forests, meandering river courses, or expansive fields in these paintings.

In all this, questions and answers are visualized and condensed as to how painting, which has been declared dead countless times in art history, can look in the 21st century. Degenhard Andrulat demonstrates that it is by no means dead, but in times of restricted movement has the ability to dissolve and expand our own boundaries and horizons, at least for the moment of contemplation.