HENRIK EIBEN

The reduced drawings by Henrik Eiben are characterised by lightness and the joyful use of colour. This can also be found in the small-format wall drawings called Foundation Talk presented here for the first time. Partly mounted directly on the wall and combined with applications of wood, leather and copper the result is temporary, fragile works that slowly grope their way away from the wall and into the room. The basement, transformed into a small drawing cabinet, forms the starting point for approaching the concentrated formal vocabulary and artistic principles of the artist.

Stepping up the stairs to the ground floor, into the next dimension of Henrik Eiben’s artistic oeuvre, it seems as if the lines and colours of the drawings had set themselves in motion, transforming into sculptural wall objects.

The three-dimensional wall works playfully liberate themselves from the construction of the wooden frame. While in the four-part work Arabesque Hop additional frames seem to step out of the picture plane, the works Boneshaker and Lightbreaker have an even more sculptural character. What they have in common, however, is the exploitation and expansion of the medium of painting. Instead of applying paint directly, Henrik Eiben uses fabrics and mouth-blown glass for his precise colour settings.

When the wall becomes an integral part of the new Foundation Talk drawings, the open forms of the sculptural works offer a wide variety of perspectives. Depending on the incidence of light, exciting plays of colour and shadow appear on the wall, which constantly change with the viewer’s gaze. Henrik Eiben thus not only sets lines and colours in motion, but also our viewing habits: >>Biddy-da-dum, boo’d up<< (Ella Mai).

Henrik Eiben, born in Tokyo studied at the Academy of Visual Arts and Design, Enschede (1997 until 2002), the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore (2001) as well as at the Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Karlsruhe under Silvia Bächli (2002 until 2004).