Around the table Print

I am a painter. My paintings arise from color, idea and the experience of many years. More and more I let myself be guided through the process and try to find the unknown, the strange, the surprising. Sometimes this succeeds and sometimes not. It is always an exercise without a goal and there is always one more color spot in my work. Ulrich Kellermann's paintings cannot be filed away in one of the many drawers of art history. They are at odds with the trends of the decades and pierce a whole series of currents. Of course, Kellermann has internalized much of the art history of the 20th century during his studies. Thus individual waves of the image stream of the 1980s still flow through the beginnings of his work... Ulrich Kellermann's works do not aim to soothe the eye, but rather to irritate the mind and emotions. The viewer is therefore thrown back on himself and his own world of thoughts. What he discovers in Kellermann's paintings says more about himself, about his longings, dreams and fears, than about the artist's motivation. The works, in turn, become a meeting point of very different subjectivities. Whether they touch each other in them, whether they agree with each other, is questionable, because the understanding of form, color, figure and space is always individual. But such an openness of content should not be misunderstood as an uncertainty. Ulrich Kellermann's works are indeed untitled. But they are not indifferent. For they all carry a narrative potential within them that is as great as the number of their viewers. No one can, however, annex or even instrumentalize this picture-widewidth, because it is only brought to life through subjectivity. In this way, Kellermann brings painting back down to earth: Painting is a place of individuality of the painter and the viewer. Martin Schönfeld