The world in a moment

Billy Leahy on the Kerlin exhibition of the gentle and alluring works of little known German artist Norbert Schwontkowski German artist Norbert Schwontkowski was quietly introduced to an Irish audience late last year, when he seemed to sneak almost unnoticed into the Kerlin gallery's group exhibition. The discretion of his first appearance on the walls of Irish galleries – one solemn work, created with a typically muted palate – is quite reflective of his gentle canvases that frequently appear to carry an apologetic air.
The painter, born in 1949 in Bremen-Blumenthal, is not hugely known outside his homeland and with the majority of his exhibitions over the last 30-odd years taking place on German soil, his work is appealingly unfamiliar. Schwontkowski's generally large-scale works are beautifully created and worked pieces – the artist uses various techniques and materials drawn from a variety of painterly traditions to produce works of subtle complexity.
The intricate nature of the canvases – Schwontkowski in their creation uses a concoction of substances like linseed oil, pulverised pigments, metal oxide, water, binding colours and bone glue – is hidden behind an outward simplicity. It has been noted that a large influence on Schwontkowski's large-scale works is a sense of naivety drawn from the drawings of childhood.
This aesthetic, combined with influences from classical painterly traditions, gives Schwontkowski a unique and slightly disturbing feel on the canvas. In one of the larger works, ‘Bass', the image of a shop front appears crudely executed, but it is clearly done with a knowingness that challenges and questions the viewer. The pictures that are chosen by Schwontkowski tend to be fleeting moments in time, perhaps these are the day-to-day ‘glanced at' images that register only for a second in our minds.
Whether the canvases show an accurate portrayal of these moments – something that is highly unlikely – or whether they are the inaccurate recollection of these glimpses or just fictional and mythical scenes remains open. But what is clear in the works is that these simple figures and objects inhabit a intimate, potentially symbolic and non-temporal arena. These subjects almost always take up centre stage in the scenarios, though this apparent statement of their importance is undermined by their reduction to a very simple and basic form – something which occurs whether the focus is on a human, an animal, tree or building.
A sense of stillness inhabits the works, but still he manages to use these miserly and guarded images to represent a worldly whole. Every work seems to representi completed universe, where the possibility and potential for change remains strong. These worlds appear to us as a idyllic elsewhere – a foreign universe laden with chances and opportunity.
Perhaps it is the gentleness and homogeneity of Schwontkowski's canvas that heightens this alluring feel of completion, or maybe their appeal lies in the nuances; the attention to detail and the abundance and masterful control of painterly techniques. One suspects the answer lies somewhere in the middle – unsurprising for an artist who manages to balance intriguing images with a steady control of technique, never allowing any one element to dominate.