Thomas Reinhold, Malweise

Thomas Reinhold, who was born in Vienna in 1953, is showing his most recent groups of works, which were created between 1994 and 1996, under the title "Malweise" (way of painting) in the Wiener Secession. The principle of "overlaying colours in numerous layers so that they disappear underneath one another, blend together and produce new hues that cannot be found on a palette and can only emerge from the overlapping of transparent layerings" (W. Pauser) is characteristic for the paintings of Thomas Reinhold.

Thomas Reinhold works on the floor. Colour is poured over the canvas again and again and then spread with the hands or brushes. This gives rise to overlapping colours that intimate both natural and geometrical forms. These layers of colour do not adhere to any spatial construction, but rather form their own spatial relationships, by claiming places, emerging or receding on the canvas. Traces of these multi-layered colours can also be found in the recently finished group of works entitled "Reiseverwandtschaften" (travel affinities).

Thomas Reinhold chose a photograph that was enlarged with the help of silk-screen as the basis of the picture. It shows the portrait of a Sephardic Jew carrying a walking stick. Innumerable layers of colour cover the photograph and seem to immerse it in a phantasmal space. Thomas Reinhold's paintings, which were classified as belonging to the "New Austrian Painting" in the eighties, eschew all forms of expressionism. His painting is based on the conscious reduction of colours and spatial development and asserts an independence that no longer corresponds to such narrow criteria as "abstract" or "figurative" art.

Thomas Reinhold
Malweise