Kleine Wand 2025 - Daniel Brunner

Formally, I use drawing and painting to explore the relationship between the performative and deliberate depiction of space. I investigate the abstraction and suspension of the object in the absence of the form. My work also examines the representation of the male gaze, complicating conventional ideas of desire and spectatorship. In my practice I elevate drawing to the status of painting, interrogating its conventional subordination while negotiating the space between figure and ground. In classical painting, the figure is meaningful and the ground is passive background. In my work, that order keeps collapsing. Figures are not securely placed on a ground, they appear to emerge from it, dissolve into it, or be partially swallowed by it. Through condensation, layering, and deliberate deformation of the human figure, color plays a central role in my work. In my installations, I place particular focus on the negative space - those in-between areas that often go unnoticed. By consciously engaging with these voids, I create moments of re-engagement that invite the viewer to reflect on the subtle dynamics of human proximity and distance.