| Thomas Scheibitz's vast canvases can be an | | | | works are far from uniform: streaky |
| unsettling experience: the brightly colored | | | | brushstrokes and drips of color permeate the |
| surfaces of his paintings manage | | | | canvas, and some sections are left |
| simultaneously to convey unbridled energy and | | | | unfinished, merely sketched in. These visible |
| leave one inexplicably cold. It is precisely | | | | traces of Scheibitz's process serve to |
| this paradox that enables the German artist | | | | activate his paintings, imbuing them with an |
| to so successfully evoke the malaise of | | | | expressionistic vitality. At the same time, |
| contemporary culture. His work hovers | | | | Scheibitz's compositions keep his paintings |
| uneasily between abstraction and | | | | at a chilly remove. We are clearly not |
| representation, residing within the | | | | invited to enter his world-an impression |
| ever-growing rift between lived experience | | | | intensified by the unyielding flatness of his |
| and mediated image. This exhibition includes | | | | picture plane. |
| an entirely new body of paintings created | | | | |
| during Scheibitz's residency at the Headlands | | | | Thomas Scheibitz doesn't paint a subject, but |
| Center for the Arts in Marin, CA as well as | | | | offers a panoptic view as a solidified whole. |
| works on paper and sculpture. Each of | | | | Adopting the flatness of medieval painting, |
| Scheibitz's paintings features some | | | | perspective is delineated through overlapping |
| recognizable and usually quite mundane object | | | | layers and scale. Flower, building and |
| or landscape-a flower, an apartment building, | | | | mountain integrate as an abridged version of |
| a stairwell. This subject matter is then | | | | space, a synopsis of grandeur. |
| thoroughly abstracted so that only the | | | | |
| vestiges of its structure shine through. | | | | Thomas Scheibitz presents the sublime as an |
| Solid forms are broken up into jagged planes | | | | algorithmic formula: mysticism denuded into a |
| of color, which are thickly outlined with | | | | composite of shapes and patterns. A |
| contrasting hues in a manner reminiscent of | | | | super-modern reinvention of the romantic |
| the late-nineteenth-century Fauvists. Each | | | | landscape, Thomas Scheibitz creates a sense |
| shape manages to stand boldly alone, yet the | | | | of awe not in the picture itself, but in the |
| composition never seems unduly fragmented; | | | | graphic simplicity with which such an |
| the shapes somehow coalesce to form a | | | | overwhelming concept is inferred. |
| coherent whole. The surfaces of Scheibitz's | | | | |