Wolfram Ullrich

7 November 2012—26 January 2013

German artist, living and working in Stuttgart, Wolfram Ullrich presents his third solo exhibition at Gallery One. The works he exhibits go beyond painting, since they ignore the traditional supports and tools of canvas and brush. From painting, Wolfram Ullrich only retains the work of volumes and form, which he knows how to magnify by the power of the colours necessary to capture the viewer’s gaze. By proposing monochrome reliefs, halfway between the sculpted object and painting, Wolfram Ullrich’s work opens a breach in a visual repertoire located at the borders of constructivism, minimalism, Op art and contemporary design.

Built from sheet steel, Wolfram Ullrich’s wall reliefs obey strictly geometric volumes. The artist’s colourful and luminous polyhedra hovers on the surface of the walls, as would stellar objects on the edge of our galaxy. Their presence, both spectral and bewitching, challenges the viewer. To a plastic language composed of pure angles and straight lines, Wolfram Ullrich likes to add some optical effects.

A succession of three or four elements is enough to give him a perspective that dominates or flees the viewer. By suggesting an elevation movement, an inclination or a withdrawal, the artist energizes his forms and manages to open a dialogue between space and the spectator. Wolfram Ullrich’s works therefore approach concrete art with an elegance and sobriety of means that give his work a rare quality.

Valérie Clerc