Helmut Dorner: Little Bricks

James Kelly Contemporary is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by the German artist Helmut Dorner. The exhibition, Little Bricks, will consist of small-scale oil paintings, drawings and an illustrated book installation. This will be his first solo exhibition with the gallery and his first exhibition in the United States in five years.

Throughout his career Dorner has continued his investigation of paint manipulation, alternating between poured lacquers and heavily textured oil paint. His investigations have broadened to include the support upon which he paints, settling upon the use of canvas and plexiglas. He has gone as far as combining the canvas and plexiglas works into groupings of diptychs and triptychs where the combination of lacquer & oil juxtaposes not only the medium and support but also the texture of the painted surfaces. The oil paintings with their thickly applied, heavily worked surfaces are a stark contrast to the smooth flowing surface of the poured lacquer pieces, resulting in an arresting visual.

James Kelly will present a new series of small-scale single panel oil paintings in the exhibition. The works are built up layer upon layer of thickly applied pigment, giving the surface a three-dimensional, almost organic surface that is quite seductive. The resulting works are extremely powerful in the formal aspects of painting: color, texture, line and gesture. The exuberance of the paintings belies their small-scale and speaks in an authoritative voice that commands the viewers attention. Dorner approaches painting with an exuberance that can almost be physically felt by the viewer mostly due to his masterly use of color.

Dorner current teaches at the Kunstakademie in Karlsruhe, Germany. His works are included in many museums including, The Museo Raina Sofia, Madrid; Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany; Musee national dhistorie et dart, Luxembourg; Kunstmuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland; Krefelder Kunstmuseum, Germany.

The artist will be in attendance at the exhibition opening on Tuesday, December 23, 2008.