HUBERT SCHMALIX

The works from the end of the 1970s - still life, landscape, nudes and portraits - are marked by an increased intensity in color and an expressive style. In the mid 1980s the female nude became a dominant subject following a several months lasting visit to the Philippines. These are isolated figures in a flat, decorative style with pure glowing colors inspired by Asiatic woodcuts. In 1987 Schmalix moved to Los Angeles. Through his encounter with the works of the American Westcoast painting his artistic vocabulary was extended in the 1990s: He produced pictures of Christ with the touch of Mexican folk art, and cityscapes of Los Angeles that follow a geometry of ordered urbanisation and point in the direction of color-field painting. In his recent work Schmalix has withdrawn from this colorist wealth, increasing the lyrical note and works again - in addition to (hunting) still lives - on the theme of the female nude. This latter is used above all for the expression of erotic fantasies of bondage rituals that can be seen in the tradition of the Japanese photographic artist Nobuyoshi Araki.