Hubert Scheibl has avoided narrative elements in his paintings from the beginning, concentrating instead on the process of painting which can be thought of as a constant oscillation between chaos and order, order and variation. Scheibl’s paintings consist of numerous layers that never really touch one another. They form a layered space that is experienced through a temporal and spatial process. Yet Scheibl does not seal the surfaces hermetically and allows one to glimpse another layer below. He speaks of “systems whose anomalies and detours become ever more frequent and finally lead to a change.” He also mentions coincidence as an organizing principle in his work.

His “goal” is neither the expression of an internal state nor the creation of a perfect image—although both aspects are certainly components of his painting process. “Self-realization in beauty” as a humanistic principle stands in a dialectical relationship to the “urge for knowledge” which aims at change and becomes a catalyst for the painting process. “SPLITTING,” the title of this exhibition, refers to the capacity of painting to make this process available to us in parts.

Each part becomes a picture in which the time and place of its creation are compromised. The ability of painting to maintain a “stream of images” and thus to create a space for critical reflection ensures its contemporaneity and maintains our interest in it as an artistic medium. The complexity of the painting process, as Scheibl demonstrates, keeps his work free of modish trends, allowing us to reflect on our existence in a universe demystified by science, on the paradox of our need for security and order in nature even as we recognize that technology is destroying our environment. Scheibl’s paintings develop according to a game of coincidence and necessity, but in no way do they attempt to posit a theory, rather they map the contradictions of contemporary consciousness.

—Peter Nesweda

Translated from the German by Charles V. Miller.