Work in progress since 2001; drawn freehand from countless fine lines; empty ballpoint pens, ballpoint pens, pencils or colored pencils on paper; 8 x 8 to 79 x 79 inches.
Anonymous Drawings & Line Fiction:
11/24 – 01/25 Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien, Berlin
02/25 – 03/25 Kunsthaus Erfurt
05/25 Hyperculturalpassengers, Hamburg
The designs are exciting and effective – the view into infinity and the astonishing vastness of space opens up another dimension that makes me think and be amazed.
Helmut Kirchlechner is a drawing artist. He draws circles on small and large pieces of paper, starting from the inside out, with pencil, colored pencil and ballpoint pen. Depending on the pressure, the spirally drawn circles appear three-dimensionally buried or raised, rough, fibrous, also colored, shiny. Helmut Kirchlechner finds his artistic aesthetics (perception) in repetition. The lines often become so fine that they stand out and become immaterial, disappearing into space like the receding sounds of a string instrument. As a viewer, I also see stars, stardust and I am constantly subject to this enchantment. In his works, circles and squares (format of papers) are dimensions and image-building, and suggestive of space. Detaching from the ground, when the „emptiness“ pushes itself into the visual foreground, the „structure“ stands out.
The fascination of Helmut Kirchlechner`s artistic approach lies in the radicality and simplicity of the concept on the one hand and the resulting concentration and intensity of the visual appearance on the other. Although the limitation to one form and a clearly defined approach may at first appear to be an excessive restriction on the possibilities of artistic expression, a closer look and insight reveals an unexpected richness that combines a variety of color, techniques and material quality with a high level of energetic charge, meditative power and strong visual presence. What characterizes Helmut Kirchlechner`s work is the opposite of arbitrariness, namely clarity and extreme reduction in the conceptual, which does not exclude the sensual qualities of the works and an almost infinite potential of possibilities, but rather makes them possible. Added to this is the fact that the shape of the circle is not just any shape, but the simplest and at the same time the most perfect shape, which has the highest (symbolic) power.
The pieces suggest an analogy to celestial bodies; like individual fingerprints, they are similar yet unique variations. Microcosm and macrocosm. I like the correlation between elemental doodling – as kids sensually experience in their first attempts to draw („primitive coils“) – and our universe („the turned into one“). As a reflection of reality in its endless cycles and infinite variations.
Work in progress since 1999; an intuitive diary in pictures, which is largely created during everyday art therapy.
* 1965
Carpentry apprenticeship with distinction, „The good form“
Art degree and master student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Prof. Franz Weisshaar
Art therapy degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Prof. Gertraud Schottenloher
Bayerische Staatsgemaeldesammlungen, Munich
Anonymous Drawings Archive, Berlin
The Sketchbook Project, Brooklyn Art Library, New York
Staatskanzlei Bayern, Munich