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Martin Kobe
Martin Kobe creates dynamic architectural visions in paint: virtual spaces that, while meticulously executed, seem provisional and in the process of collapse.
Kobe’s paintings reference architectural modernism, and its emphasis on sheer horizontality, open-plan living, and visually bisecting lines as much as the seamless set architecture of popular science fiction. Interior and exterior views are compressed using interlocking horizontal planes. Sharp, vertiginous walls and ceilings inter-cut with balconies, picture windows and coulisses, leading the eye around the canvas. Kobe’s palette is vibrant but with each painting, the overall hues are restricted, either a tight range of deep reds, silver blues or acid greens that enhance the emptiness in the work: utopia devoid of the mess of the everyday.
Kobe makes his paintings using many layers of paint that are built up to create rich areas of colour in blocks, sectioned off by masking tape. This introduces an element of painterly collage, of different viewpoints, buildings and trajectories being compressed into one image. The buildings are sometimes unfinished, without roofs or walls, and support structures appear more like scaffolds for the picture itself. Kobe uses different methods of painting within the picture plane, ranging from a perfectly smooth, flat application, to an expressive handling of the paint where it appears as if it has been dragged or squeezed onto the surface. These more indistinct areas introduce an element of human error, a kind of elapse and an entry point for the viewer.
Martin Kobe has participated in group shows internationally including East International, Norwich (2004) and ‘From Leipzig’, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (2005). Solo exhibitions include Kunstverein Leipzig (2003), White Cube (2005) and Christian Ehrentraut, Berlin (2006).
More on Martin Kobe
| Artworks | |
 | II 4 Images |
 | III 4 Images |
 | IV 4 Images |
 | IV 4 Images |
 | Related Texts |
| CV | |
| Bibliography | |
| Painting as Doubt and the Architecture of Impossibility by Mark Gisbourne | |
| Exhibitions | |
| Behind True Symmetry 26 Oct—24 Nov 2007 | |
| Loomings 21 Jan—26 Feb 2005 | |
| Artist's Publications Available in the Bookshop |
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| Behind True Symmetry 2007 | |
 | Related Links |
| http://www.christianehrentr... Christian Ehrentraut Galerie | |
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