Thomas Arnolds | RUN (Disegno und Farbe)

About

Thomas Arnolds was born in 1975 in Geilenkirchen, Germany. He lives and works in Cologne, Germany. Originally having been trained as a stonemason and sculptor at the monastical diocese for church restora- tion in Aachen, Arnolds studied painting with Walter Dahn at the Academy of Fine Arts in Braunschweig.

In his work, Thomas Arnolds explores a fundamental interest in examining the possibilities and conditions of painting in ever new ways. In the process, he develops a complex and yet coherently rigorous position that negotiates central issues pertaining to the media in a logical balance of what initially seem to be contrary approaches: abstraction vs. figuration, minimal vs. gestural, space vs. image, surface vs. matter, hard- edged vs. flow and free drawing. The essence of his images inheres in their surprising and yet always con- cise combination.

This creative vocabulary manifests itself in ways that are as various as they are consistent: interior spaces, fragments of tools, and banal everyday objects encounter bonsai arrangements, architectural forms, or the iconography of ancient column arrangements. The correct rendering of the visual content chosen is of sec- ondary importance, instead the motifs serve as placeholders or a simple “occasion” to step before the can- vas at all. Arnolds always works serially, but consciously avoids developing his oeuvre linearly in clearly defined work groups. Based on an initial, conceptual saturation, things already introduced in the process are mixed and confronted with a new technique or altered painterly approach. What remains constant is the foundational importance of the material paint, which Thomas knows how to use compellingly in its deep quality between materiality and volume, symbolism and metaphysical aspects.

Thomas Arnolds has developed a range of tools that is as precise as it is variably applicable, a “free set of rules” between intellect and gut feeling, reflection and anarchy with which he advances his oeuvre as a radical form of painting.

In this exhibition entitled 'RUN (Disegno und Farbe)', Arnolds now has collected a series of large format works that represent the start of a new series of works, a range including vanitas – pop – disegno – hard- edge – surface – signal – soft-focus – larger than life – print – quotation – message – detour – unaware- ness – plan – persona – risk – ? – ! ... in space and in the works.

His work has been subject to various solo and group-exhibitions a.o. 'K60', Wilhelm-hallen, Berlin

(2020); 'Thomas Arnolds & André Butzer', Livie Fine Art, Zürich (2020); 'Echo Chambers', Galerie Bär- bel Grässlin, Frankfurt (2020); 'Augmented Bonsai', Galerie NosbaumReding, Luxembourg (s, 2019); 'Ort und Hall', Jahn und Jahn, Munich (s, 2019); 'Some Trees', Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles (2019);

Duktusinduziert, Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren (s, cat; 2018); 'Double Sunday (red or blue)', AK- Raum, Köln (s, 2018); 'RUN', Galerie Hammelehle und Ahrens, Köln (s, 2018); 'Trance', Aïshti Founda- tion, Beirut (2018); 'Thomas Arnolds', Kunstverein Reutlingen, Reutlingen (s, cat, 2014); 'Re-vision', Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn (2017); 'Der Funke soll in Dir sein (cur. by André Butzer)', Salon Dahlmann,

Berlin (2016); 'In der Wohnung', Alte Fabrik, Gebert Stiftung für Kultur, Rapperswil (cat., 2014); 'Der Westen leuchtet', Kunstmuseum Bonn (cat., 2010).
Thomas Arnolds’ works are part of renowned collections such as the Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Leopold-

Hoesch-Museum, Düren, and the Rotterdam Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.