Bruno Kurz


Bruno Kurz is a German painter. He primarily works on reflective surfaces such as metal, creating paintings of great luminosity and depth – expansive colour fields with vague allusions to landscape. Apart from painting, his work comprises large art installations fashioned through light.

Biography

Bruno Kurz spent his childhood in Kressbronn am Bodensee. He is the oldest son of Rupert Kurz, a metal worker, and his late wife Gertrud Kurz. During his secondary education at the Knaben-Realschule
Lindau, Bruno Kurz was introduced to oil painting by his mathematics teacher. After finishing his Abitur at the Technisches Gymnasium Friedrichshafen, he started an engineering degree, which was disrupted by being called up for Zivildienst. Subsequently, he did a year's travel, going by ship to Israel and Rhodes, where he created his first group of paintings and finally decided to study painting. After his return, Kurz studied at the Freie Kunstschule Stuttgart under :de:Gerd Neisser and at the :de:Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe under Per Kirkeby and :de:Max G. Kaminski.
Bruno Kurz has been concerned with particular aspects of light and colour since his youth. While still studying, he undertook extensive travels to Southern Europe and India, later to Mexico and Canada. The experience of nature and new realms of colour and light led to numerous experiments with painting surfaces and colour substances, and major work cycles evolved. A project grant on the theme of "Heimat" enabled his first journey to Northern Europe in 1998, where he visited the Outer Hebrides, the Oakland Islands, the Scottish Highlands and Bergen in Norway. Celtic symbols and their typical merging of circle and cross, Irish-Scottish monasticism and its connections with the Lake Constance region, together with impressions of nature formed the basis for a large project-related exhibition in his home town Kressbronn am Bodensee, featuring expansive installations. From 2000 onwards, such experiences of landscape effected a new series of pictures: Over ten years, he worked on his Hebrides Cycle, where, for the first time, the horizontal layers of delicate colour fields emerged that characterise his work; they would become a core aspect of his future painting practice. Since 2013, the artist has frequently travelled to Iceland and Greenland.
"What's important is, that an artist just like our 20th century Canadian painters, goes north in search of the light and in search of interesting themes. Everyone knows that the northern artists went south for discovering the light. The best example of that is Provence. But here we have an artist who goes north because the light is just as beautiful, strong and pure. So Bruno Kurz comes along in the depths of winter and goes round the Hebrides in his kayak and is impressed by what he sees. Without any photos, of course, he goes back to his studio, and paints with a good distance, this distance that is so important for painters so they are not overwhelmed by nature, but have had time and space to absorb and process it."
Bruno Kurz lives and works in Karlsruhe. He shows his work in one-person and group exhibitions in galleries in Germany, Canada and Switzerland and has solo presentations at international art fairs such as Art Toronto, Art Zuerich or Art Cologne.

Awards

Bruno Kurz obtained his first studio on the premises of the IWKA in Karlsruhe in 1986. With Georg Schalla, he founded the artists' group KUNSTRAUM IWKA and campaigned for the preservation of the huge industrial buildings on the premises. He co-organised a series of exhibitions titled Letzte Arbeitsberichte IWKA I and II, which was vital for saving the building Hallenbau A, now Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, ZKM.
Yet the artists could not ultimately prevent the destruction of the other buildings and the sale of the estate – in December 1986, the Karlsruhe City Council authorised the premises to be demolished, including the enormous art installations in the industrial buildings. For their gesamtkunstwerk KUNSTRAUM IWKA, the artists group were awarded a project grant by the Kunstfond Bonn, which entailed a documentary exhibition in Bonn.
Bruno Kurz created large-scale art installations in his first studio on the IWKA premises. He wanted to generate an adequate counterbalance to the colossal industrial building through large-scale art works and installed huge geometric sculptures of plastic sheeting that reflected the sunlight coming through the sawtooth roof : "Rain water puddles caused by the leaking roof cast back vast reflections and gave the artist further stimuli for his work. In 1988, for the first time, he used water as a sculptural material in space. The clarity of the installations he has since created is a result of these early architectural-monumental experiences of space. Further down the line, he created his spectacular installation 'aller Farben bloß' in the baroque halls of the Ettlinger Schloss."
Taking inspiration from the monikers "Green, Blue and Red Salon" and their corresponding tapestries, he installed coloured plastic film in the windows of the halls and created a sequence of coloured light. Notwithstanding the wide range of artistic possibilities offered by three-dimensional space, the formal, aesthetic and conceptual means of his installations clearly relate to his painting practice.

Teaching

Apart from working as a freelance painter, Bruno Kurz also took on a variety of teaching posts in Higher Education. From 1993 to 1997, he taught Drawing at the Pädagogische Hochschule Karlsruhe, 2002–2008 Painting at the Europäische Kunstakademie Trier, and 2002–2007 Experimental Painting at the Landesakademie. He is also concerned with art historic analysis and with conveying the practical application of various approaches to painting to lay-persons. Since 1984 he has been part of the team of tutors at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe.

Abstract landscape painting

Based on the composition of a classic landscape painting, Bruno Kurz creates delicately structured landscapes of colour, which do not reference an actual place any more but depict moods and atmospheres – floating between stillness and energetic dynamism. "The quietness emanating from his works results from their concentration, from their formal and chromatic restraint and the conscious rejection of the spectacular in his pictorial subject matter: landscape and colour space. Despite their discreet harmonies, the works of Bruno Kurz are actual bundles of energy." Emphatically horizontal lines and areas can visually expand beyond the frameless margins of the picture into infinity, and, in conjunction with vertical colour gradients, form a Perpetual motion, effecting a balance of opposite movements – to the point of apparent stillness.
This impression is emphasised through his choice of the square format. Since Kazimir Malevich, the square is considered the absolute form of abstract painting in the 20th century, and, in Bruno Kurz' work, finds its way into landscape painting. It does not become a theme in itself, but lends an almost archaic force to the imaginary horizons and changes in direction of the colour gradients between sky, water and earth. The square creates an unusual section of these colour-landscapes while, at the same time, focussing the permanent oscillation between states of matter.
Energy fields and directions of movement are geometrically fixated and concentrated as in a cross, the symbol of the union of extremes, of synthesis and proportion. It combines time and space. This primeval formal element of art history serves as the subcutaneous base structure in most of Kurz' paintings. It is subliminally discernible in particular geometric components, vertical and horizontal lines, cross-hatching on metal or in brush strokes and enhances the meditative aura of the paintings. Square and cross double the force that originates here, apparently still, yet always in motion: both in the variations of incidence and reflection of light and in the gaze of the beholder. Through the consistent reduction and abstraction of the forms and elements, an unfathomable, almost sacral depth is created. Or as one of his German galleries points out: "Inspired by the classical composition of the countryside, Bruno Kurz produces nuanced, abstract color landscapes of unbelievable illumination and depth."

Colour

In addition to his strict formal aesthetics, Kurz also examines the physical qualities of his chosen materials. The painter experiments with diverse dyes and paints, merges synthetic elements, pigments, inks, water colour, acrylic and oil paints or resins and fillers in unconventional combinations and layers of colour.
″Horizontal layers provide the colours a clear compositional order. At the same time, their colour space appears to pulsate in fields of light. Reflective surfaces – consisting of resin, India ink glazes or transparent silk gauzes layered over a vertically delineated metal background – afford the works a striking luminosity and shimmering colour spectrum.″
The materials are applied in such a way that they keep generating new effects and perplexing visual impressions. The eye of the beholder can immerse itself deeply in these colour landscapes and thereby encounter extreme opposites – from glassy, translucent glazes to relief-like three-dimensional colourstrips.
Beneath the seemingly two-dimensional surface, multiple planes and pigment layers shine through, which evolve through a long process of overpainting and modifying extremely subtle textures. "Kurz's surfaces are richly worked, with paint developed in rich layers. His textural surfaces, inscribed with scumbles, swipes, scrapes, and miasmas of color, capture the rich and varied lands through which he travels in search of beauty. Kurz's bright colors and abstract imagery follow in the tradition of Abstract Expressionist color field painters — such as Mark Rothko and Jan Kolata." The transformation of the conventional canvas painting into a colour space floating in front of the wall is the result of years of engagement with the three core themes Colour – Material – Light.

Material and light

For Bruno Kurz, painting does not start with paint, but with the choice of the painting surface. He utilises very different materials such as wood, canvas, silk or paper.
″Through layering as well as the combination of unconventional materials – gauze, sheet metal, resin – the artist accomplishes wild optical impressions. Words such as transparency, levity, and dissolution describe the effect best. The thoroughly reflective resin layers and metallic surfaces create light tricks and reflections that define the atmosphere of the works.″
Over the last few years, the artist has increasingly used sheet metals; in his studio, he prepares and alters their surfaces with grinding machines. Thus, light and colour will later be differently absorbed and reflected. The first horizontal aspects are already generated in the primary material and influence colouring and colour gradients from the outset.
Many titles of his work demonstrate the mindset behind Kurz' oeuvre: navigating the phenomenon of light. The geometric lines of the paint application or the material constitute the basic structure inherent in any new work. Within these lines, Kurz works on the theme of light with always freshly composed and varied arrangements of colour and materials. "There is no such thing as the right light for my paintings", the painter points out: every incidence of light, every change of the beholder's position effects a new situation, new hues and colour fields emerge – his work appears to change constantly. ″Depending on the incidence of light and position of the viewer, the paintings may be perceived in a variety of ways. The multiple viewpoints offered by the works are the hallmark of their vitality.″
Yet it radiates an unexpected calm, which is the result of optimised formal reduction and concentration. In Kurz' work, light does not visualise anything representational, but, beyond the interplay of colours, indicates the potential for inwardness and a capacity for knowledge. Thus the painter creates the conditions for meditation. His paintings offer vanishing points and spaces of tranquility: "In our hectic world, stillness is the true spectacle."

Catalogues