Drawing / Helgoland – Evelyn Kuwertz

Drawing

The drawing set me free to engage with the object spontaneously, the direct notation increases the concentration and the intuitive understanding of the structures. In my work on the city of Berlin, I mainly used it as a design technique, to give concrete form to the image idea. The drawing and its related techniques such as watercolor or ink on paper form a continuous component in my work as an independent means of expression. In the middle of thr 80s the historical theme of the Cityviews ATOMBUNKER KUDAMM KARREE and the „OHNE TITEL“ became continuing and transforming in a elimentary way.

Helgoland

In the subject -HELGOLAND- only the drawing is used as a stylistic device. The visit to the island of Helgoland led me to the conception of the pictures with the title – Helgoland -, which I developed against the background of the historical events and the impressions on site (during the 2nd World War the island of Helgoland was completely bunkered as a strategic base In 1947 it was almost completely blown up). This historical background of the island is decisive for the “nature observation”.

In the center of this work of „HELGOLAND“ are 8 segments (240/320 cm), charcoal drawings on paper.

The picture structure is made up of two rows of 4 drawings on top of each other. Black braids of lines cover the upper row of pictures and connect the four sheets across the paper to a grandiose panorama of the sea. The reflexes and movement of the water are completely dissolved in virtuoso lines, which are enhanced with colored accents and their dramatically vibrating effect. Despite the high degree of abstraction, the representation never loses its depictive intent.

Although the „Heligoland Pictures“ are drawings in the technical sense and the surface of the pictures are structured by lines and hatching, with the gestural traces remaining visible, the overall effect of the images tends to the painterly. It’s the relationship between the analytical intent of drawing and the synthetic approach of painting that makes the Heligoland Pictures so disconcerting and simultaneously so appealing. The ‘seascapes’ of Evelyn Kuwertz coalesce to form an allegory of time and to visually educate the involved viewer – they become ‘seescapes’.

Dr. Brigitte Hammer 1987, Berlin