Es war einmal Painting

Detlef E. Aderhold’s painterly oeuvre is impressive not only because of its scope, but because of its great rigour, reflectiveness and intensity. Any attempt to locate his painting within a conceptual system leads to the recognition that Aderhold’s work cannot be subjected to ordinary categorizations. With a stimulating ambiguity, he walks a fine line between figurative and abstract painting, between artistic intentionality, experimental openness and chance. Dr. Gabriele Himmelmann I am searching for a visual vocabulary to symbolize disorder and order, cacophony and silence, ferocity and gentleness! By constructing startling colour combinations, shapes, figurative elements and passages of patterns and collaged materials, I try to externalize a pre-representational world and bring you, the viewer, with me into the act of painting. I start by instinctively sketching my subconscious ideas on paper and then, over time, I transition into composing more dynamic and expressive marks and images onto the canvas. Objects, numbers, symbols, text, faces, or abstract daubs of paint emerge on the surface, the result of mood, unconscious ideas or chance in the moment of creation and comprehension. However, I must step back to contemplate at length if what I have just designed is really communicating what I also want the viewer to ponder. Ultimately, I try to build a deliberate, expressive composition from spontaneous elements to suggest the juxtaposition of opposing forces that defines our abstract thoughts and our human interactions. Detlef E. Aderhold