2008
Gustav Kluge
Gustav Kluge, photo: Inge Zimmermann
The human figure is the central theme in the work of Hamburg-based painter and graphic artist Gustav Kluge. The pastose application of paint, cracked surfaces, and alternating colour areas meet on his canvases in balanced and powerful composition. The figure stands as the pars pro toto of human existence in Kluge's resolutely figurative work. Using raw and partially abstracted forms, he orbits the human psyche's deep fears of pain, violence, humiliation, lack of freedom, and repression in order to penetrate to the core of human existence.