Jerry Zeniuk / “How to Paint”

February 17 to April 21, 2018

Exhibition opening was on Saturday, February 17, from 1:00pm to 5:00pm the book presentation of “How to Paint” at 2:30pm.
A talk had be held with the author Jerry Zeniuk and the publisher Dr. Heinz Liesbrock, Director of Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop.

It is an important book that was written by Jerry Zeniuk and published in an English / German edition in 2017 (Sieveking Verlag, Munich). This momentous text is clearly structured into 37 short chapters. The artist writes about his experiences with painting and shares his insights and findings as a painter, which he passed onto his students and considered and clarified with them during his time as a teacher. An informative and enlightening read in a time of often contrary and confounded conceptions of art.

Jerry Zeniuk in “How to Paint”: Visual artists, painters in particular, think outside the limitations of language. I would say the fullest explanation of their method is the understandig of space, whether it is actual space or pictorial space. Pictorial space is an imaginary space generally seen in pictures or paintings. Space has no time. Time comes from moving about in space. Pictorial space is quickly grasped, making for a static image, but moving about in this static space enhances the visual experience and takes place in time. So when we look at a picture, we see everything at once; but in real time we see much more, although the image has not changed. Space has no limits. Seeing the space, moving about in the space takes time and creates dimensions. Seeing is very different from language. Everything we see takes place in a space. This space has a light. We see the light in the objects that reflect it. And a painter, and in particular a color painter, sees the color of the light on a plane independent of the corporeal form. This transformation is what visual thinking concerns itself with in the creation of images. A painter sees and thinks about the organization of color on a plane that suggests a space. The picture plane is an imaginary plane corresponding to the surface of a picture and, in particular, a painting. The picture plane, and what takes place upon it, is where serendipity can occur. Color releases emotions, and the pictorial space is a non-judgmental place that frames and contains these emotions so they may give access to a universal understanding. A masterpiece never seems to have been painted, but rather to have always existed.

Our gallery’s first exhibition with Jerry Zeniuk took place in 1977. From 1992 to 2011, Zeniuk taught at the Academy of Fine Art in Munich.