But there is Day and Night 1, 2019
Mixed media on canvas
61 x 192 inches
155 x 488 cm
Udo Nöger creates luminous monochrome paintings that capture light, movement and energy expressed in highly minimalistic compositions. Nöger, who grew up in Enger, a town in Westphalia, Germany, emigrated to the U.S. in 1990 on a scholarship. In the earlier part of his career, he was known for his expressive figurative paintings that explore the dimensionality of color. These raw, mixed-media works were often populated by mysterious, archaic figures and symbolically charged imagery inspired by his travels.
By the mid-nineties, Nöger began to focus his attention exclusively on the interaction between light, space and color, moving away from the more aggressive style of canvasses he was producing in favor of a minimal aesthetic that distilled his concept to its simplest form. His desire to go deeper into his ideas coupled with the boredom he experienced always working on the front of a canvas prompted the artist to go beyond the surface both materially and conceptually.
To produce works that appear to emanate light from within, Nöger employs an almost architectural approach. The paintings comprise three layers of canvas mounted on stretchers set at a distance from one another. The interior canvas, from which the artist cuts out simplified biomorphic forms, functions as the actual pictorial plane. Once the internal composition is complete, the outermost surface is treated with mineral oil to amplify translucency and visually bring the composition to the forefront.
The resulting works are subtle and atmospheric, both in the visual nature of the paintings and in how they interact with the surrounding space—the kind of light, the quality of light, even the time of day can impact the viewing experience. While the paintings are rendered in a restrained palette of soft whites and grays, depending on the light that illuminates the work, faint shades of blue, purple and green can emerge.
Udo Nöger grew up in Enger, Westfalen, Germany. He has exhibited extensively across the globe, including at Siegerlandmuseum, Siegen, and the Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum, Hagen, Germany; Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, Missouri; Museum of Art Honolulu, Hawaii; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, Colorado. His work is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Art Institute of Chicago; Bass Museum, Miami; and Haus der Kunst, Munich, among others.
Born in Enger, Westfalen, Germany in 1961 Works between San Diego, Miami, and Geneva.