Lot 67 D

Per Kirkeby is an artist as well as a natural scientist. His studies in geology, his travels, and his affinity with nature are manifoldly reflected in his artistic work. Realistic themes of nature are discernible in his paintings but merge so seamlessly into abstract structures that they are barely tangible for the viewer. Should one suppose to recognise a figurative motif, a tree, a rock, an animal, and then, upon delving deeper into the work in anticipation of further such insights, all certainty immediately disappears again. The presumed recognition is transformed back into an abstract structure of lines and surfaces upon intensive observation. Vegetative elements appear to crystallise out of the painting on offer here, young trees and shrubs form the undergrowth of a forest clearing against the background of a wintery grey sky, remnants of snow cover the ground, an oversized animal seems to be cowering in the foreground, a moment later, however, the observer is again confronted with a purely abstract network of manifold superimposed layers of brush strokes.
Kirkeby explicitly did not see himself as a landscape painter: “There are two terms that I detest in the dealings with my art. One is 'landscape' and the other is 'colourist'... I have always detested this. After all, I am a city kid. I have never had a particular 'oh-what-a-beautiful-view-relationship' to landscape. For me, landscape is a very specific historical category, a certain cliché that one can always abandon, of which one can implement something or not implement anything.” (Per Kirkeby, as cited in: Poul Erik Tøjner, Per Kikeby. Malerei, Cologne 2003, p. 44). For the artist, nature first and foremost signified “substantiality and materiality” as Poul Erik Tøjner explains further at this point (loc. cit.). Kirkeby did not create a perspective natural space, nothing idyllic adheres to his paintings. There is no horizon and no panorama. Instead, he lowers and constricts the gaze luring the viewer into the midst of the impenetrable undergrowth and morass of a completely unromantic but intense experience of nature.