Galerie Fürstenberg, Paris 1992
Bernhard Vogel's cityscapes mirror New York, Paris, Rome, Venice and London from certain atmospheric perspectives . The prevailing light and weather conditions convey the chromatic mood of Bernhard Vogel's water colour paintings since the coincidences of actually observed motifs constitute his point of reference . Nonetheless, thanks to the individual and subjective style developed by the artist, his paintings provide far more than more representational imitations of the individual urban landscapes.
The particularity of the artist's method of painting is already clear from the work he executed as early as 1988/ 98/ 90. Here, the motif is largely subordinated to the fluid character of water colour hues producing transparent, silhouette-like combinations of from which come near to dissolving the motif in liquid pictorial zones . At the same time, more clearly designated representational elements stand out sharply in areas painted with detailed dashes of colour. Single colour zones and the pristine white of the unpainted paper serve to add relief to painted areas which thus become detailed windows or the balustrade of abalcony. Bernhard Vogel's method of painting is based on the conversion and translation of events into a pictorial world which is determined by the degree of diffusion of the motif on the one hand and on the selection and emphasis of individual areas of detail on the other. Furthermore, the chromatic harmony generated by Bernhard Vogel emanates beyond the painted surface into the surrounding space.
In his cityscapes of 1991/92, Bernhard Vogel develops his style of painting yet further. The same hand manages to combine the diffusion of the motif in liquid colour with the perfection of dftail. He achieves this by organising the painted surface in individual pictorial sectors in the fashion of a carpet which is coloured section by section and which becomes more representational and detailed in its individual sections. The motifs created in this way serve as a focal point. At the same time it is irrelevant whether these are located in the foreground or background of the pictorial space. Optically they always thrust themselves into the foreground and thus unify distance and proximity in the plane of the painted surface. Abstraction proeeds from the inaccessibility of Bernhard Vogel's urban landscapes because his foreground are explicitly biurred, diffuse and flat. The remaining elements also display perfectly plainimetric, abstracted pictorial interconnections in their "smudged" and fluid chromatic compression. From picture to picture, Bernhard Vogel replaces the actually observed, crisply delineated illusionistic forms of the motif with his own flat, layered contexts of coloured areas which take on their own reality. Although Bernhard Vogel's pictures are based on the observed, they still present his own independant vision of the chromatic spectacle, a spectacle which constantly causes the suggested real qualities of the motif to shift into flat expanses of colour. The unpainted white paper base plays a peer role as, perhaps, a roof, a pavement or a similar landscape component or simply as a source of illumination between the colours. The flat painting and the uncolored base form a unifled whole. It is only the implementation of a subjective, dualistic way of painting, which is simultaneously calculated and emotional, ordered and diffuse, fluid and rich in minute detail, which allows Bernhard Vogel to create two- dimensional pictorial worlds with the effect of depth, space, plasticity and light. In Bernhard Vogel's water- colours, these elements are always the result of his subjective vision of the relationships between chromatic areas. at the same time, Bernhard Vogel never fails to astonish with the sureness of his technique in the handling of the water- colour medium, where second- thoughts are scarcely possible, and which tends to drowns a compressed and self- contsined colour structure in a fluid chromatic continuum which, rather than throwing the motif into sharp relief, tends to negate it.
This chromatic interplay projects the tension beyond the pictorial space and combines with the colour chords to form the basis for the atmospheric mood in each individual picture. This atmosphere itself now arlses exclusively from Bernhard Vogel's subjective pictorial language, as do all seemingly real qualities. Out of non- representational pictorial building- blocks free of formulas, this language creates dense, reflexive and autonomous connections for the colour areas and represents observed reality in a new light. Bernhard Vogel's pictorial world exists beside the real world. It takes the latter as its reference point, but without imitating it slavishly. Bernhard Vogel resolves this paradox by substituting recognisable, tactile forms containing individual isolated motifs with a painted chromatic continuum seen, invented and dove.