Bernd Koberling: Stony Road

Bernd Koberling is a Berliner. That city, burdened with a complex historical, political and cultural past, has marked him both as person and artist. However, for the past thirty years he has sought solitude in Lodmundarfjördur, a valley on the east coast of Iceland, where he finds continuous and endless inspiration. He stays there for months every year and the valley has become as important for his mental survival as his studio in Berlin. These extreme contrasts, between urban environment and untouched nature, have had a lasting influence on him - the severity and solitude of the northern space and the crowding, chaos and pressure of the city. He longs for Iceland as much as he needs Berlin.

Iceland is a bare country, hiding nothing from the observer. Most other countries are covered by vegetation and forests that blur details and outlines but in Iceland nothing obscures the formations of the land. The shapes of the mountains, the vast panorama and unending horizon that meets the sky or sea, these are the first striking elements you observe. You are constantly aware of the ever-changing surface of the land prey to all weathers, winds and strong natural forces. The water both hot and cold in its dramatic formations, the ground with its incessant tactile qualities and the infinite depths and variety of its colours. And it is exactly this "face" of the land that attracts Bernd Koberling - its richness, delicateness and vulnerability - as revealed in its continuous shifting of expression.

Issues regarding our society and environment have always deeply engaged Koberling and his approach is both intellectual and emotional. His long-time dwelling in Iceland and earlier in Swedish Lapland and northern Norway has given him a deep understanding and respect for nature. But it has also sharpened his observation and equipped him with a rare insight into the huge environmental problems facing us. He has seen how fragile and delicate our natural countryside is and in observing the quiet and continuing destruction of nature by man he observes how fast it can be ruined by short-sightedness, greed and ignorance.

At the same time the opposite is taking place in the valley. He has traced the gradual transformation of the vegetation since farming died out here and people moved out of the valley and left it isolated. Since then the land has undergone a profound physical healing process and its fragile wild vegetation is returning.

It was first in Iceland that Bernd Koberling began to paint watercolours, so different from anything he had previously done in his painting, and it is still only in Iceland that he paints them. His watercolours were at first distinct from his oil paintings but gradually they became an important part of his artistic expression and later these watercolours changed his paintings completely. His paintings became a metamorphosis of his watercolours. For the past ten years he has painted large series of watercolours that vary in their expression from year to year. In this exhibition we see a series of 92 watercolours from autumn 2004, called the Stony Road.

Lodmundarfjördur is Bernd Koberlings holy place, his sanctuary, a womb he enters to seek shelter and nourishment. Here he feeds his soul as he steps into nature and gradually becomes part of it while it transforms his inner vision. He takes in the weather and the different sounds of the wind, the bright sun and shifting daylight, the water and its reflections, sound and movement, as well as the harsh survival of the fragile life. He absorbs the beauty and purity of the environment - its gifts and offerings as well as the various elements that affect it. He listens to the heartbeat of nature.

Bernd Koberling's watercolours are no longer a direct representation of the visible world as they were at first. Instead they have become a transformation of the inner structure of the microcosmic world where his perception of nature has resulted in an understanding of the clarity and harmony of life. They are a metaphor of life and death, expressions of the ongoing existential conflict in the meeting between man and nature and the continuous battle for survival in a larger cosmic whole. Delicate and tender, translucent and light, compassionate and sensual they flow in a pulsating energy and interchange of colour imprints across the paper to create intricate formations and structures. Koberling's watercolours and recent paintings have become inseparable. They feed and nurture one another and through them his art embraces imagination and reality, innovation and excitement.

Bera Nordal Museum Director

Pressetext

Stony Road
The Watercolours of Bernd Koberling
Ort: Asmundarsafn