WELTEN WANDLER N°2

Dennis Scholl
Neue Wunden oder
Vom Beginn der Unmittelbarkeit

( New wounds or
On the Beginning of  Immediacy)

What happens to us when we go into the woods? Although most people in these times have the choice of staying in their orderly urban environment or purposefully venturing into the realm of trees, lichens, mosses, and animals, even nowadays in cultivated forests many excursionists still perceive the typical aromas of the wilderness wafting through the undergrowth and they sense the presence of other creatures in a variety of ways.
Have millions of years of life in the forest inscribed themselves into a collective human subconscious? And why is there an ambivalence in the wild between the feeling of one’s own strength and heightened awareness of beauty, but also of danger?

“Now the taste for beauty is best formed in the free, where there is neither house nor landlord”
Henry D. Thoreau in “Walden”, p. 38

Being “free” also means being liberated from all the rules of settling down and being open to life. However, the beauty of natural unfolding is based on a constant struggle for survival in conditions that are difficult to control and in constant exchange with other creatures, whether this is wanted or not. 

Dennis Scholl uses this heightened existential potential of pristine nature in his paintings, as he usually chooses light groves or deep forests as the setting for his figurations. In the twilight of the morning sun or early evening, softly dappled by the shadows cast by the leaves, enigmatic figures indulge in their actions and inclinations. Sometimes people, sometimes animals, or creatures in metamorphosis, they seem to be guided by secrets and rituals. Mysterious symbols and objects as well as wondrous signs, such as ornaments of drops and floating flames, further alienate the situations. The depicted are connected in states of transition: from intactness to injury, from grounding to dissolution, from affection to loss, generally from inwardness to alienation. Scholl sensitively and delicately explores the psyche of his protagonists at these culminating points of encounter.
In these paintings and drawings, he draws on the rich world of myths and beliefs of the European continent, his homeland. His paintings blend ancient legends and Christian iconography with impressions of his personal environment and detailed knowledge of the omnipresent flora and fauna depicted. In forests full of refractions of light and active shadows, which once also characterized Central Europe, the depictions evolve between brutality and splendour, between violence and tenderness with each work, and his seemingly coherent pictorial world becomes more complex. Realized with old-masterly skill, the genuine qualities of the medium of oil painting literally illuminate these charged scenes of timeless melancholy.

Of this year’s four solo exhibitors, Dennis Scholl is the only native German. He was born in 1980 in Hünfeld, Germany, and grew up near Fulda. He completed his studies from 2002 to 2007 in the classes of professors Franz Ehrhard Walther, Andreas Slominski, and Michael Diers. As early as 2005, he took part in important exhibitions at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, followed by numerous international solo and group exhibitions to date. Galerie Michael Haas Berlin, DSC Gallery Prague, and Podium Gallery Hong Kong, among others, represent his works on the art market. Dennis Scholl is a fellow of the Trustee Program EHF of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and lives and works in Berlin.

Text by Stephan Klee

 

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Programme

Sun 05.05.24, 11:30 am –02:00 pm: Vernissage – Reception with speeches and the edition by Dennis Scholl

Sun 14.07.24, 03:00 pm – 04:00 pm: Guided Sunday Exhibition Tour with  Justus M. Müller

Sun 28.07.24, 03:00 pm – 04:00 pm: Guided Sunday Exhibition Tour with  Justus M. Müller

Sat 10.08.24 05:00 pm – 07:00 pm: Guided Exhibition Tour and open Panel Talk with Dr. Alexander Leinemann, Art Historian and Stephan Klee, Curator of the exhibition

Sun 11.08.24, 03:00 pm – 05:00 pm: Finissage with Guided Exhibition Tour and Edition

Please book your participation in the events at info@kunstvereingoettingen.de or klee@kunstvereingoettigen.de respectively by telephone at +49 (0) 551-44899

 

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THE EDITION OF THE SHOW

 

 

Dennis Scholl Senden und Empfangen, 2024,
digital drawing, 40 x 27.7 cm,
age-resistant digital FINE ART pigment print on Hahnemühle Ultrasmooth 305g/m²,
edition of 15 / 3 AP,
price: 320 € / 240 € for members of the KV Göttingen.

For all those who are fascinated by Dennis Scholl’s dazzling visual world, the Kunstverein Göttingen has created this exquisite edition. By purchasing the piece at this special price, you are not only securing this exceptional work as your own, but you are also supporting the work of the Kunstverein Göttingen for contemporary young art and the artists involved.

> If you are interested, please contact us here: info@kunstvereingoettingen.de

 

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The Annual Programme 2024

TERRA DIASPORA – WELTEN WANDELN – ( CHANGING WORLDS )

TERRA DIASPORA is the leitmotif of the Kunstverein Göttingen 2024-2025. In the face of fundamental upheavals in the coexistence of nature and mankind, TERRA DIASPORA stands for a world on the move; for a terrain that is becoming increasingly alien to its inhabitants, and for an earth on which people are becoming foreign bodies. It is an earth in a foreign land, a terra diaspora.
The first part of the 2024 programme series is called TERRA DIASPORA – WELTEN WANDELN and shows artists, who create new worlds between rational reality, dream, and fantasy. Dubious of a purely functional picture of reality and often affected by family experiences of migration, the exhibited artists connect the accustomed with the new, combine facts with the fantastic and create their own identities out of old stories and new experiences. Worlds are made visible which stem from our roots and emerge when we wander the earth.
The 2024-2025 annual programme, developed by curator Stephan Klee and the participating artists, will be overseen by him over the next two years.
The second solo exhibition of 2024 is dedicated to current paintings and drawings by Dennis Scholl, which allow an enchanted and iridescent pictorial world that has grown over decades to enter the daylit rooms of the Künstlerhaus Göttingen.

 

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We would like to thank our sponsors: Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur, Stadt Göttingen,  Landschaftsverband Südniedersachsen e.V. , Sparkasse Göttingen
With the support of the Trustee Programme for the promotion of artists EHF 2010 of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung