Herbert Brandl
Monday, 21 September 2009
To create movement from paint and brush strokes is no easy feat. I have tried to no avail to perfect my skills in this regard. It is therefore not surprising that Austrian artist Herbert Brandl’s work floored me entirely. Majestic and visceral, they are rich with allusions to exuberant natural forces and atmospheric phantasmagoria.
“Precious few strokes of a deep, cold grey accent this seemingly chaotic field of brush-scribbles. One long diagonal brushmark passes across the middle, near to a single large dab of golden yellow, the only non-blue in the show’s seven works… Brandl blends a taste for nature’s most dramatic visual effects with a talent for submerging his imagery just below the threshold of representation, making pictures that are always becoming, rather than being. What at first looks like an arbitrary field of artfully invented marks resolves itself upon further looking into a realistic portrayal… All the explosive splatters and running, chaotic paint, which seemed a mere record of action and chance, prove crucial to the depiction. They fill with specific meaning and are revealed to be necessary, even inevitable.”
Excerpt from “The Vienna Minute”, written by Abraham Orden. Please visit Brandl’s to view more of his staggering work.