Beginning with early portraits, cityscapes and still lifes from the 1950s through to the latest ink drawings, overpaintings and collages, an independent body of work has emerged that has not, however, abandoned its connection to painting. While painting formulates valid statements in its sensual presence, the work on and with the medium of paper offers a more direct approach, is sensual and reflective at the same time. It enables Strawalde to examine his intellectual and artistic vocabulary in ever new variations and provides an insight into his artistic cosmos, which is fuelled in a special way by his own biography and is often incomprehensible without it.
Strawalde's delight in the graphic exploration of works of old art began in the 1980s with the "overpainting films" and the series of reworked art postcards. Our exhibition presents a new series of these graphic image commentaries and alienations, which utilise a number of reproductions of the highly Mannerist engravings and etchings of the French School of Fontainebleau. The artist's book that Galerie Pankow Berlin and the Leonhardi Museum have jointly published to accompany the exhibition is dedicated to these playful, imaginatively interpretative and sometimes aggressive sheets.
Matthias Flügge spoke at the opening of the exhibition on 1 July 2021.
