In the solo show “graue_sinfonie”, Bernhard Paul once again demonstrates the worlds that can be opened up by serial brushstrokes. The works from his new series “agens” (Latin for “driving”) are on display for the first time. The oil paintings consist exclusively of the colors cyan, magenta, yellow, black and white. This series takes its name from the attempt to “drive the colors into grey” during the painting process. The result is a gray that is never homogeneous, but is effective precisely because of the color gradients. Paul repeats this process of driving again and again – until the picture has the qualities that determine the end of the painting process for him. The concentrated regularity of the “final strokes” define the artist’s personal pictorial language and are arranged vertically in this series.
The principle of the series accompanies Bernhard Paul throughout his entire creative phase. Both his oeuvre as such and each painting itself is designed serially and always follows repetitive principles. This systematic repetition and variation of brushstrokes creates color gradients, lines and structures that develop into a beat or rhythm. It is not surprising that Paul seeks inspiration in music. The representatives of so-called “New Music” changed the perception and aesthetics of music through a new approach and the gradual abandonment of major-minor tonality through to twelve-tone music. Bernhard Paul takes composers such as Wolfgang von Schweinitz and John Cage as a source of inspiration for his painting. However, the result is not a visualization of what he hears; rather, the painter focuses on the visualization of dissonance, multidimensionality, flatness and depth.
The way in which the brushstrokes and the resulting traces of color lead to an extreme complexity can be seen particularly well in the works of the “softcades” series. The broad traces of color, placed one inside the other and on top of each other, create a two-dimensional color effect, which is supported by the chosen horizontal formats and reinforces the impression of the cut-out. The “interlude” series, inspired by the music of John Cage, also has a multi-layered effect due to the visualization of the brushstroke. With parallel vertical brushstrokes, color tone by color tone is built up side by side on the canvas. Starting from a gray surface, the painter brushes to the edge of the picture. In this way, the traces of color are sometimes more, sometimes less intense on the picture, creating a pictorial horizon.
The pictures from the “modus” series stand out at first glance. However, it is perhaps in this series, inspired by Wolfgang von Schweinitz, that Bernhard Paul pursues his approach most radically. Painted with black acrylic paint on untreated canvas, the pictures correspond to a “supposedly reproducible painting process”. Each brushstroke is carried through to the edge of the picture. The increasingly thinner traces of paint thus also reveal intersecting traces of paint underneath. These straight brushstrokes create a network of lines, which is subject to pictorial depth, impressions of balance and imbalance as well as pictorial composition as quality criteria.
During the painting process, Paul reacts to creases and folds in the canvas fabric, which influence the motif and composition. What particularly appeals to the artist is the concentration in which the entire painting process is intensified. No brushstroke can be undone or painted over. An “unfavorably” painted brushstroke can only be deflected or reinterpreted by further brushstrokes.
Bernhard Paul manages to make the picture grow out of its two-dimensionality. Not only by creating a rhythm and a flatness that is permeated by depth or by the perception of a shimmering that arises in the viewer, but above all by revealing the painting process itself. Through this traceability of the painting process, the trace of color creates another level that lies beyond the painted picture surface and opens up worlds for the viewer.