Udo Nöger's "Translucent"

×

Expand

Udo Nöger

Zermissend 17, mixed media, canvas

In Translucent, his second solo exhibition with Callan Contemporary, Udo Nöger advances his ongoing exploration of light and form. The technique he pioneered in the early 1990s—creating paintings in which light itself is the medium—continues to captivate viewers around the world. Superimposing scrim-like layers of tautly stretched canvas (dipped in mineral oils to heighten translucency), he embeds an array of gestures and cut-out forms within the picture plane. This allows light to penetrate and travel through the painting in three dimensions, an effect unique to his work. With their immaculate whites and shimmering grayscale tones, the artworks are serenely contemplative, yet simultaneously radical in their reimagining of what a painting can be—a characteristic they share with the Arte Povera movement of the 1960s and 70s. “I had this idea to open up the canvas,” Nöger reflects. “For me it’s very necessary that I’m not sitting in front of a canvas, filling it up with forms; I’m more interested in the endless possibilities of what’s underneath the canvas.” 

The exhibit will be on display from March 1–April 20, with an opening reception on March 9 from 6 pm–8 pm, and an artist reception on April 6. callancontemporary.com