THOMAS SCHEIBITZ (German, born 1968) Kindergrab (No. 243), 1999 oil on canvas, 86 x 58" Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Sherman S. Jewett Fund, 2000.

Thomas Scheibitz, an up-and-coming young German artist born in Radeberg in 1968, currently lives and works in Berlin. Part of a group of emerging new talent in Germany, Scheibitz’s paintings have a distinctly post-cubist orientation. His puzzle-like forms are carefully composed in tightly connected compositions locked into shallow space. The forms he uses suggest fragmentary landscape and architectural elements, at once recognizable and abstract. Coupled with his unique sense of color, Scheibitz’s paintings have been described as a cross between “expressionism and Japanese cartoons.”

In this painting, organic, plant-like shapes coalesce in the center of the picture where a cross-like form dominates. Perhaps this shape reflects the child’s grave referred to in the title. (The English translation of Kindergrab is Children’s Grave.) The quirky colors that Scheibitz uses in his painting are at odds with the solemnity of the subject suggested in the title.

- Jennifer Bayles, Educator for Special Projects