Press Release for exhibition (04.03.– 15.04.2021)
Galerie ART CRU Berlin shows pictures by Horst Schiele, who was born in Berlin in 1948. It is the first solo exhibition of the artist.
A combination of circles, rectangles and triangles is the underlying basis of each of the artist’s paintings. The associatively set forms are colored with a broad palette in oil pastels, a medium that allows the artist the greatest possible autonomy in his work. Schiele’s forms are often superimposed by one or more additional layers. If one wanders along these surface lines while viewing the drawings, one senses a concentrated force that lends the paintings a special tension and extraordinary compositional dynamism. Sometimes Schiele places the lines close together, usually black or white in contrast to the luminous formations in the background, so that a structure seems to take over the image. Sometimes he chooses airy, bubble-like circles to overlay his color field foundation, or he sets selective accents with shorter strokes. The particular contrasting relationship of these two layers, combined with a richness of variation in the volume of paint application that can differ greatly within and between paintings, offers viewers a fascinating resonance.
After both of his parents died in 1979, Horst Schiele, then 31 years old, moved to Albert Schweitzer Stiftung Wohnen & Betreuen. Until retirement age in 2013, he worked in the Nordberliner Werkstätten (NBW). Since 2014, he has been working on his drawings in the workshop of Albert Schweitzer Stiftung, and has already exhibited them several times in Berlin.