Thomas Hartmann. Königsdisziplin
29 September to 3 November 2018 ⟶ Corneliusstraße
"The work in the studio is without beginning and end. The finished picture is only an interruption". With these words, Thomas Hartmann not only describes his own attitude to work as a painter, but he also characterises each finished picture as a snapshot from a constantly changing flow of painting, as a pause in the constant striving to discover the secret of painting. Movement resonates, being on the move, a goal in sight, recognisable but not representable. Restlessness drives the painter - restlessness as a productive state out of which pictures become possible, restlessness that enables the painter to start again and again, to break open anew, and the picture as an individual and autonomous piece of painting whose goal remains uncertain. For "if it were clearly delineated," wrote Paul Valéry, "there would be no [pictures] that one never gets to the bottom of." (Text: Annette Meyer zu Eissen)