Peter Thol

Peter Thol (born January 22, 1955 in Cottbus ) is a German painter .

Life

Peter Thol grew up in Gelsenkirchen . From 1979 to 1986 he studied painting at the State Art Academy in Düsseldorf under Norbert Tadeusz and was a master student of Gotthard Graubner . In 1983 he received the Academy Award and in 1985 the Academy's travel grant. During this time he lived in Düsseldorf .

In 1998 he changed his place of residence. Since then he has lived with the artist Renate Wolff in Berlin and Dessow . The views of the capital and the surrounding cultural landscapes of Brandenburg form the starting point for many of his pictures. His work as a freelance artist was funded in 1997 with a grant from the Kunst und Kultur NRW Foundation and in 2013 from the Art Fund Foundation.

plant

Peter Thol paints almost exclusively with oil colors , this applies to their use on canvas as well as on paper. Two themes can be found in all of his works: On the one hand, the unspectacular, everyday, which Thol reproduces and interprets in its contemporary facets. On the other hand, there is painting itself, which means that, despite the ostensibly figurative style of painting , Thol works out how each of his pictures was created from color. This can be seen in the small overpaintings that disrupt the figurative structures and in the choice of motifs, whereby Thol prefers motifs that already have an abstract quality by themselves, such as the crumb of a field, which is then painted almost filling the picture.

In addition to urban landscapes , including streets or a nocturnal S-Bahn station, cultural landscapes such as fields and meadows can be found in his work. The roads that are often shown, including motorways and country roads, can be counted to both. The landscape pictures reach an edge length of up to three meters. Thol also paints still lifes . These often small-format pictures depict things of contemporary everyday life such as shopping bags, bottles, a pack of tablets, telephone books, but also timeless things such as sliced ​​rolls and bitten apples. A series of portraits belongs to an early phase of his work .

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo exhibitions

• 2016: "umhin", Wittenbrink Gallery, Munich
• 2011/2012: “The Measure of Things”, Wittenbrink Gallery, Munich
• 2000: “Still life”, Heinz-Martin Weigand Gallery, Karlsruhe
• 1999: "Eating - Drinking", Ralf Radtke Gallery, Krefeld
• 1998: "Every day", Kunstverein Unna
• 1997: "Pictures 1995–97", Kunstverein Lingen, Kunsthalle Lingen (Ems)
• 1995: Galerie Espacio Minimo, Murcia, Spain
• 1994: Tabea Langenkamp Gallery, Düsseldorf

Group exhibitions

• 2012–2015: “Nightmare”, Visual Arts Center - McClure Gallery, Montreal, QC; Salon de Lirio, Velim, Salcete; Maribor Art Gallery, Maribor; Artspace RheinMain, Offenbach; Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Manila u. a.
• 2013: "inside inside buiten outside", Galerie Roy, Zülpich; Kersgallery, Amsterdam
• 2000: “True Illusions”, Bergman Gallery, Gothenburg, Sweden
• 1998: "Michael van Ofen, Peter Thol, René Wirths", Shift eV, Kunstverein, Berlin
• 1996: "Pittura - Castello di Rivara", Centro d'arte contemporane, Rivara, Torino, Italy
• 1995: "The Adventure of Painting", Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia , Düsseldorf; Art Association Stuttgart
• 1986: "Düsseldorf / Maastricht - Maastricht / Düsseldorf", academy galleries
• 1983: Kunsthalle Recklinghausen

literature

• Heike Endter, Florian Thomas : The dark sound of color. Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2011.
• Heiner Schepers: Peter Thol. Kunstverein Lingen, Buxus Verlag, Lingen 1997.
• David Galloway: After the death of painting. In: Herald Tribune , Paris, 27./28. May 1995.

Web links

• Peter Thol's website
• Peter Thol at the Wittenbrink Gallery.