Markus Döbeli
The ways in which paint is distributed in Markus Döbeli’s abstract paintings can be described as screening, veiling, injecting, crumbling, pouring, flooding, sweeping and blowing. Each mode of distribution determines different material/textural and spatial/topographical effects. His practice explores the chemical properties of paint as a constant shift between all states of matter. The streams of paint that flood the surface of the canvas manifest liquidity; the expansive movement of paint from and through the canvas signifies a process of evaporation, and the absorption of paint into the fabric of the canvas demonstrates congealment. Even though it obeys the categorical imperatives of Modernist painterly abstraction–anti-illusionism, flatness, the lack of compositional hierarchy–Döbeli’s practice cannot be labelled as “Modernism Revisited,” “Reinventing Abstraction,” or “The Return to Painting.” It is neither critique nor homage, neither deconstruction nor nostalgia. Döbeli’s painting is a performance of an indeterminate state of matter.
He has had solo exhibitions at Kunstmuseum Luzern, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Galerie Mark Müller in Zürich, and Galerie Isabella Czarnowska in Berlin, among others. His work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as Mai 36 Galerie in Luzern, Maison de Congrés in Montreux, Aargauer Kunsthaus in Aarau, and Kunsthalle Luzern.
Courtesy of Galerie …
The ways in which paint is distributed in Markus Döbeli’s abstract paintings can be described as screening, veiling, injecting, crumbling, pouring, flooding, sweeping and blowing. Each mode of distribution determines different material/textural and spatial/topographical effects. His practice explores the chemical properties of paint as a constant shift between all states of matter. The streams of paint that flood the surface of the canvas manifest liquidity; the expansive movement of paint from and through the canvas signifies a process of evaporation, and the absorption of paint into the fabric of the canvas demonstrates congealment. Even though it obeys the categorical imperatives of Modernist painterly abstraction–anti-illusionism, flatness, the lack of compositional hierarchy–Döbeli’s practice cannot be labelled as “Modernism Revisited,” “Reinventing Abstraction,” or “The Return to Painting.” It is neither critique nor homage, neither deconstruction nor nostalgia. Döbeli’s painting is a performance of an indeterminate state of matter.
He has had solo exhibitions at Kunstmuseum Luzern, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Galerie Mark Müller in Zürich, and Galerie Isabella Czarnowska in Berlin, among others. His work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as Mai 36 Galerie in Luzern, Maison de Congrés in Montreux, Aargauer Kunsthaus in Aarau, and Kunsthalle Luzern.
Courtesy of Galerie Isabella Czarnowska
