PER KIRKEBY (Danish, born 1938) Holz IV (Wood IV), 1994 oil on canvas, 78 3/4 x 67” Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Sarah Norton Goodyear Fund, 1999.

The paintings of the Danish artist, Per Kirkeby come out of the tradition of American abstract expressionism. However, Kirkeby’s work is decidedly different in its lack of existential angst. Kirkeby’s paintings are earthy, earth-bound, and very much about the physical materials and processes of painting.

Born in Copenhagen in 1938, Kirkeby studied geology and went on a number of geological expeditions before entering art school in 1961. His varied career has included writing poetry, publishing a novel, and doing performance art with Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik, and others in the 1960s, to making sculpture in the 1970s. His paintings evoke nature through their color, form, and meticulously layered paint.

This painting, titled Holz IV (Wood IV), was completed in 1994. In it, the encrusted surface has been applied layer by layer, characteristic of his working method. He says of his work: “Painting is laying layer upon layer …It is like the geological strata with cracks and discordances. But each new layer, however furious, is always infected and colored by the underlying one.”

- Jennifer Bayles, Educator for Special Projects