Visceral Paintings by Clemens Krauss Channel Human Vulnerability

Austrian painter Clemens Krauss has developed a potent, compelling impasto technique to realize his dynamic, figurative paintings of crowds or clusters of people that seem to pulsate. Applying thick, textural daubs of paint in swirling motions and weighty layers, he employs the medium in a liberal, sculptural manner and produces an unusual sense of perspective.

Aptly named “Friction,” Klauss’s solo exhibition, now on view at Sydney’s Dominik Mersch Gallery, features a bevy of the artist’s works, many of which embody the rich sense of resistance that the title suggests. The oil-on-canvas paintings by the Berlin-based artist recall those by artists like Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning in terms of their use of of paint. Krauss differs though, in that he takes this abundance of material to a new level, and offsets it with expanses of bare canvas. Krauss’s works, which sometimes take up to six weeks to dry, might assume a subtler or, at times, a drastically different character after they have set. Viewed from different angles, the densely applied paint lends an ever-shifting, visceral quality to the canvases, which ultimately compliments some of the more theoretical ideas underpinning Krauss’ works.