Benjamin Burkard

30.11.86 born in Kandel (Rheinland-Pfalz). 2006 graduated from the Europa Gymnasium in Wörth. Since 2007 he has been studying art and biology at the University of Landau.

Benjamin Burkard’s mostly large-format works confront the viewer powerfully and with intense coloring. They challenge the viewer in their diversity and point to ambiguous messages in surreal form. The artist’s starting point is initially his enormous pool of images from magazines, photographs and sketches. He recorded individual ideas and fragments in a constant stream of new books until they finally matured into the basis for his paintings. The drawings stem from his interest in mechanics, science, nature and, to a large extent, people. Detailed compositional sketches, notes from language and literature, as well as impressions of his immediate surroundings serve Benjamin Burkhard as the foundation for his paintings. Contrary to appearances, nothing is left to chance, and yet the spontaneous color flow of the impulsive commission repeatedly finds its way into the composition. The artist deliberately places the layers of color on top of each other and initially develops an abstract basic structure from this. Light colors lie on top of darker ones, opaque surfaces block the view into the depths and, in addition, structures applied with a broad brush in a glazed manner allow the underlying layers to emerge visibly. It is precisely this diversity of veiling and opening that creates an incredible tension and significantly reinforces the intense impression of the haptics of the pictures. Their surfaces seem almost tangible to the observer and give the individual areas a constantly changing texture. Drops, gradient lines, small scratches and even open areas of the canvas: the various traces of this intensive painting process may well disappear again as the work progresses, but they often remain until the end and emphasize the dynamism of the design. From the mostly diffuse, unframed outer edges of the canvases, the colors seem to flow into the interior of the composition and condense there. At their core, they develop different areas of central importance. These centers of highest concentration are increasingly found in the horizontal or vertical central axis, but can also be moved to the edges of the picture from time to time. With a tremendous force of color, the intense dynamics of movement and counter-movement, the painting undergoes a new work process. In the course of developing this deep space, figurative objects, primarily people and animals, are worked out of the abstract colourfulness. Inevitably, these elements, some of which achieve almost photographic accuracy, attract the viewer’s attention. Only to move further components visually from the background and form the narrative unity of the paintings. At second glance, a complex pictorial structure of additively assembled fragments opens up, which are held together like a closed organism by various architectural structures, as if by the cloak of a dwelling.

Even if he is not visible, only limbs hint at his presence, man plays a central role within this artistically created ecosystem.