Pantaloni

neugerriemschneider is pleased to present its first exhibition with Thilo Heinzmann at the gallery. Over more than two decades, Thilo Heinzmann has developed a refined visual language that explores the aesthetic and synesthetic possibilities of painting. Investigating this art form's various fundamentals – composition, surface, form, color, light, texture, and scale – his work seeks out new sensations and ways of seeing.

The exhibition, entitled Pantaloni, comprises a specially conceived new body of work that draws from an array of physical and conceptual ideas deployed in previous pieces. For the first time, Heinzmann employs irregular, modular picture planes. These shaped compositions are hewn from the warm-hued, humble material of particle board, with rough edges disclosing the hidden disarray of the board’s interior. The works are painted with epoxy resin that flows, drips, dashs and melts onto the matte surface of the board, embedded are fragments of the board interior.

The limit of the picture plane in terms of depth and boundary is of ongoing interest for Heinzmann. In Pantaloni, Heinzmann lifts the composition away from the wall so it appears to be floating in space. Each of the one, two or three planes is suspended at an angle, in one instance even interacting with the floor.

Particle board was initially used in Heinzmann’s work in the mid-90s, when he first departed from the canvas. Drawn to its industrially smooth surface, yet internally chaotic structure, Heinzmann was then led to materials such as polystyrene, aluminum and unbound pigment that remain at the core of his practice. With each of these elements, Heinzmann reveals their hidden incongruities and caprices, making space for a directness and freedom that he sees as fundamental to the medium of painting.

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Review by Michael Bracewell, Burlington Contemporary, July 2019