Jens Stickel is a painter. His painting is concrete insofar as it often allows no reference outside the image and focuses entirely on color and its application; it is abstract when it explicitly draws from non-pictorial subjects to translate them into painting. In both cases, Stickel’s view of the world seems less driven by an interest in the self-evident and more by the chromatic surfaces of things. This becomes clear in his photographs, which do indeed show objects, but whose main focus lies on their colored appearance. The photographed objects find counterparts in Stickel’s paintings. 

This correspondence is especially evident in his abstract works, when he ‘sets’ a brick wall or an awning pattern—or even the French tricolor—within the image. Less obvious, but no less compelling, is this pictorial inclusion of the world in his concrete-monochrome color paintings. In his large-scale series “Twenty-One,” color presents itself as an object with which the painter actively engages. The color-object, which the viewer faces, suggests only what may have happened under the painter’s hands (and feet). Visible are traces of actions that can only be partially named. Stickel brings these traces into radical presence as elusive palimpsests. Painting becomes an act or ‘painting deed.’ In doing so, the artist’s action is inscribed in the color without asserting itself as an expressive gesture. Stickel intentionally avoids any notorious self-assertion—even in paintings such as his newest ones in an irritating lilac color, in which a star-shaped white space is omitted in the center. Its shape results solely from the painter’s arm’s length as he circumnavigates the canvas laid on the floor, attempting to cover it completely with paint. The failure of this attempt produces a wonderfully delicate, floating form.

Jens Stickel presents color as an immediate, presentational force—one that articulates itself as the result of a prolonged and resistant process. This quality is precisely what gives these works their singularity. Stickel’s paintings confront the viewer as objects. As objects, they belong to the non-pictorial reality that surrounds the viewer. As part of that reality, they relate directly to it. As painted images, however, they speak about reality in ways that differ from its everyday categories. (JvdB)

Biography: Jens Stickel
Born 1981 in Öhringen; lives and works in Karlsruhe

Education
2006–2013 Studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe, Freiburg branch, under Professor Leni Hoffmann
2010 Semester abroad at Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, China, with Professor Deng Guoyuan
2012/13 Master’s student under Leni Hoffmann

Selected Exhibitions
2015 PFERD GEGEN TGV, Weingarten Town Hall (solo) | Sonnige Tage, Galerie Clemens Thimme, Karlsruhe (solo) | RETOUR DE PARIS, Centre Culturel Franco‑Allemand, Karlsruhe (solo) | PASSENGERS, Stichting Kaus Australis, Rotterdam | Regionale 16, Kunst Raum Riehen | Overmorgen Artists, Baden‑Baden State Art Gallery | Höhenluft #10, Kunstverein Ettlingen | Route Du Nord, Old Shell Building, Rotterdam | 144 = 441, Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn und Taxis, Bregenz | Connexion en cours, Goethe Institute, Paris
2014 Regionale 15, Kunst Raum Riehen | Q2051, Cité International des Arts, Paris | Un pezzolino da cielo, Malkasten, Düsseldorf | mini animism, Friends and Lovers in Underground, Kling & Bang, Reykjavik
2013 Für die Stiefel, Galerie Clemens Thimme, Karlsruhe (solo) | Regionale 14, Kunst Raum Riehen | PANAMA., Kunsthaus L6, Freiburg
2012 Not wanting to say anything about Marcel, Galerie Clemens Thimme, Karlsruhe | Regionale 13, Kunst Raum Riehen | Höhenluft #4, Kunstverein Ettlingen | TOP 12, Master’s exhibition, Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe
2011 Regionale 12, Kunst Raum Riehen | Tankstelle, zip, Basel | POTT, plan b, Karlsruhe | back_from, Kunstverein Freiburg
2010 zheer, Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, China | QU, plan b, Freiburg

Awards and Grants
2015 Atelier Mondial Fellowship, Christoph Merian Foundation, Rotterdam | Winner, 22nd Karlsruhe Artist Fair
2014 Grant from the Ministry for Science, Research and Art Baden‑Württemberg, at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris
2009 Winner, Annual Exhibition, State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe

Curator: Jörg van den Berg