Henning Bohl: Corner of a Cornfield

About

Henning Bohl's practice explores traditions, conventions and their limitations in making and displaying art. Working on primed canvas with a restricted palette of coloured paper, he produces collages that recombine elements from a lexicon of graphic motifs. These pictures refer to both painting and sculpture. They function as ‘props', resembling theatrical scenery. Large-scale canvases are often stacked or leant in a manner that acknowledges their temporary occupation of the space. His installations frequently operate against the architecture of the gallery, creating obstructions or interruptions and directing paths. Bohl's exhibition takes its title from a nineteenth century landscape painting by William Davis. Once referred to as ‘loving depictions of utterly insignificant subjects,' Davis's compositions are oddly prosaic in comparison with the more intense work of his Pre-Raphaelite peers. A hunting scene entitled View from Bidston Hill (1865) depicts a distant figure on horseback and a hare in the foreground almost camouflaged within the heath. This discreet treatment of the hunt caused one critic to describe the hare as ‘an eccentric intrusion.' Bohl's title refers to Davis's tendency to invert perspective and reduce conventional points of focus to marginal details. This shift in emphasis is echoed by Bohl's decision not to hang pictures on the existing walls but construct temporary architecture for the exhibition in the centre of the space. His installation takes the form of a three-dimensional composition employing a modular structure bearing two new collage works. Bohl's construction employs sculpture that takes the form of tables with surfaces made from plasterboard, transferring the vertical white planes of the gallery to a tiered, horizontal format. This will be Henning Bohl's first solo exhibition in the UK. Curated by Michelle Cotton