| Creating large-scale, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors, Hungarian artist Karl Stengel, courageously goes beyond the given and familiar, pioneering new techniques and materials in order to expand his own vision. While Stengel’s paintings have the swirling energy of many abstract works, they also suggest something quite different: the murmuring of numerous voices beneath each layer. The artist’s work has changed greatly over the years, and is seldom truly abstract. |  |
James Wyckoff
Creating large-scale, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors, Hungarian artist Karl Stengel, courageously goes beyond the given and familiar, pioneering new techniques and materials in order to expand his own vision. While Stengel’s paintings have the swirling energy of many abstract works, they also suggest something quite different: the murmuring of numerous voices beneath each layer. The artist’s work has changed greatly over the years, and is seldom truly abstract. In his monolithic works layers of paint are laid onto the paper and canvas with the lightest touches, while the subject matter in the large acrylic paintings is ephemeral and mysterious. Humanity finds a fractured reflection of itself within the work. While preserving both Surrealist and Expressionist influences, Stengel’s paintings offer a new and unique contribution to the art and culture of his times. His method is contemplative, meditative, and indulgent. His stunning works maintain a fantastical, exotic vision, even when dealing with the commonplace. In Triptic: Fuga Musicale, painted in early 2008, Stengel experimented with bulbous forms—some sexual in character—that derive from Gorky’s evocative brand of biomorphic abstraction.
A tireless talent whose artistic life has always been devoted to a search for the new, Stengel is well-known for the dynamism, poetry, and spirit of his works. His paintings are typified by their large size, luminosity, and varied use of materials. Stengel’s own unique brand of Neo-Expressionism ranges from the characteristic shapes of Tachisme to the virtuosity of Op-Art. Stengel was born in Hungary in 1925. After WW II, upon release from Russian captivity, he returned to Budapest where he studied at the Academy of Arts and Crafts. Even though Surrealism was then the official trend, he focused on history of art and architecture as well as anatomy. In 1956, the Soviet intervention in Hungary forced Stengel to leave the country. He lived in both Munich and Spain where he completely devoted himself to painting. Stengel eventually moved his studio to Italy, where he has lived for the past 20 years.
Although the majority of Stengel’s works may be categorized as abstract landscapes, his works are not landscapes in the traditional sense. Rather than representing an actual place, they represent an emotion or a state of mind. Themes central to Stengel’s work include evolution, existence, passion, and tenderness. In the Il Filo Di Arianna, 2000 series, for instance, with characteristic directness, Stengel renders each line in dark hues, sporadic drips, and notational brush strokes. Compensating for the near colorlessness of the painting by adding crimson blemishes, and smudges of midnight blue amidst slate gray. These three colors inform Stengel’s palette, particularly in the form of languid, swirling blooms of runny paint sprawling from one side of the canvas to the next.
Stengel’s looping, sinuous line brings forth an intimate cosmos fraught with psychological and physical yearning. The artist has a fierce way with line as well—in each of his recent works, the viewer can watch it stutter and flow, ramble and rage with an impressive consistency—yet it never gets beyond itself. Disassociated from any corresponding sensation, experience, or thing, Stengel’s metaphoric abstractions glisten over whatever surface they happen to occupy. Demanding that viewers leave at the door notions of what painting should be, Stengel allows them the freedom to let feelings be the guide. Although recent works appear to have evolved toward a whole new territory for the artist, they actually represent a distillation of themes and ideas that were already evident in his earlier work. These include an exploration of the elements of earth, water, fire, and air, interest in both northern and classical myth, and concern for what man does to man. Key to these works is the tension created between description and the desire to suggest or evoke generalized, symbolic forms. Overall, these works represent a new confidence and maturity in the artist’s handling of paint and evocation of his subjects. Stengel’s ambition for painting as a carrier of meanings that are accessible to all is evidence of his own immersion in the culture of painting and its potential for transformation. More than anything, Stengel’s works should be interpreted as attempted answers to the question of whether painting today can encompass human experience and be able to address life in all its absurdity, complexity, and tragedy.
