Wolfgang Leidhold

"Sketch No.35/6: The Knotted Castle" Abstract Representational Painting on Paper

2019

Wolfgang Leidhold is a prominent contemporary German painter, drawing upon mythological, geometric, religious, and historical themes to depict his whimsical vision of the world. Influenced by the still-life compositions of Francisco de Zurbarán and the classical references of Giorgio de Chirico, Leidhold fuses these concepts with his imaginative vision. His labor-intensive artistic process consists of a detailed charcoal sketch that is then turned into a grisaille of grays, whites, and ochres. Next, he covers the entire work with a tinted varnish and produces the final painting using a minimum of seven layers of egg-tempera and oil. Even the materials, which the artist makes from scratch - using whole fresh eggs, different kinds of varnish, and especially refined linseed oils - emulate the methods of Old Master painters. Leidhold’s work embodies a new voice that communicates a keen awareness of the past by reformulating age-old artistic practices. In the typography series, Leidhold puts the knot in front of a landscape and at the same time removes the know from being a concrete sculpture, it's more like an illusion, and what the viewer sees is the impact of the universe “daw” in a cosmological level. The topology presents the power of the knot around civilization and buildings, it means the tension of a city almost collapsing and being reorganized by the power of the known. The idea of reordering the city that is in the background and now expanding and reorganizing the city. It is an endless loop, with the simple idea of just to start and then to let it go. It is like an endless infinity or infinite loop, as each knot was created from different periods and it represents a part of the artist's life.