Ferdinand Penker

23 Feb 2010


[Source: Galerie Schuette]

A couple of weeks ago I attended a lecture by minimalist Austrian artist, Ferdinand Penker. His work is inspired by his vast collection of cheese graters; they are almost identical but each one has slight variations. The notions of series and repetition are central to his paintings. He creates paintings in which he repeats the same colour over and over again, where there are only small variations in the texture of the brush strokes. These are displayed in rooms where every available piece of wall is covered in nearly identical paintings.

Although I do like his paintings and other creations, I was particularly drawn to the ones above which are a collaboration between Ferdinand Penker and Trevor Sutton. The pencil markings on masking tape are the cast offs from Penker's own drawings (the tape is used to stick drawing paper to his desk, and when his pencil veers off the page the masking tape is marked), and it has been layered over a geometric painting by Sutton. I'm not the best art critic, but I do like the way the lines, colours and textures intersect.

One thing that Penker said that I will try to remember, is that drawing can help you achieve a real sense of concentration, and it's important to just draw for the sake of drawing.

2 comments:

Cara Kuhl said...

I love hearing about an artist's work through the artist him/herself! And this makes you think, how many artists can you detect a flavor of OCD in their work? I think in many forms of art it's a beneficial quality for the artist. Very interesting!

emma wallace said...

How interesting! My husband, sister and mother are all amazing artists so I feel very intimidated when picking up a pencil to draw but I find it very meditative!

iamemmamusic.blogspot.com

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