Artist book with 27 b/w illustrations, numbered, hand-stamped, German/English

Artist: Hendrik Krawen
Title: Geschlossene Fenster Offene Türen
Format: Book
Language: German/English (32 pages, 27 Images)
Size: 21 x 21 cm
Weight: 250 g Brochure
Published by Cafconc Ed., 2017

Hendrik Krawen (b. 1963, Lübeck) lives and works in Berlin. His artistic focus is on painting, drawing and graphics. Krawen’s drawings remind one of Ingres, of the illustrative works of early Warhol, of the Franco-Belgian ligne claire school of comics and, of course, of architectural drawing. Fastidiously rendered, he often contrasts his motifs with coarse shadow-figures, who in painterly quality go beyond mere staffage. Krawen’s tools are brushes and paint. The graphite pencil is used only privately or in the sketchbook. Krawen plays with typography, between sgraffiti and graffiti, twisting and turning letters, working with stamps and stencils. Here handwork is crucial. Krawen does not paint watercolors onto computer prints. Keeping with music, his inspiration is more likely to be found in the DIY aesthetics of early Detroit Techno, Jamaican Reggae records, or African music. Krawen’s painting is solid, graphical, often full-tone. Here, too, he works with utmost care – application of color, monochromy, contrast. What is portrayed becomes emblematic. Gestural expression is of less importance to him; rather an affinity to screen-printing, as an idea, the pattern, the serial.