Freeing the Color Pencil
Christine Flok
Every artist begins as a "drawer," every masterpiece begins with a sketch. Whether working in sculpture, photography, paint or technology, the artist must primarily develop hand/eye coordination through the simple act of taking a pencil to paper. All aesthetic development builds from this foundation: the knowledge of space, shape, structure, scale, lighting, contrast, etc. Drawing is a very intimate medium, it brings the eye close to the page, it focuses all attention on one specific point, all of the creative spirit there in one hand.
This intimacy is something that is felt immediately when looking through Peter Kripgans’ artwork. Kripgans works with colored-pencils–an art form that has become nearly extinct in contemporary art. It sits there on the shelf next to watercolor and pastels, a league of artists almost invisible in the modern day art world. But Kripgans seems unphased. He creates worlds from mere lines, creates space with time–his time, spent there lending painstaking detail to every scene, every composition.
One is placed in an environment, a mood, by Kripgans’ drawings. I am looking through my window, lounging in solitude in pastures near a European cottage. The air is fragrant, the sun sparkling just beyond. It is poetry, or at least poetic, the artist’s deft touch. His creation of a scene for one to dwell within, linger, conversate, create.
The truth is his drawings look like emotive photographs. The gentleman obviously has an understanding of architecture and scale, but it is his ability to allow emotions to seep into the work that sets these works apart from mere landscapes. And this is his signature: to create a composition that is aesthetically elegant, realistic and full of life.
In the work Trave at Evening Sun, Kripgans touches upon the reason why the colored pencil is still an effective tool to create art. The pinpoint precision, the looping current in the river as it reflects the full-bellied sky above. The way that the sun slowly recedes into silence and the spring evening sets us down by the nearest body of water to feel that reflection, celebrate one more day of experience, of love, of sorrow.
In Senator’s Park, Hamburg, we find ourselves before an ancient tree in autumn. Perhaps this is where you’ve first kissed your wife, decades ago, where you ran to during childhood to play in seclusion, the path home that was tread daily without notice, but now, years later will bring tears to the eyes in reminiscence.
To see a work in progress from Kripgans is an impressive experience. In Salzpeicher, the buildings seem to be stripped down to their essentials only then to be built up again, layer-by-layer. It is here where Kripgans’ attention to detail shines to validate his realism. Each blade of aged brick, each weathered windowpane, is given his strict attention, marking his orientation to detail.
The colors that Kripgans uses are natural and aesthetically beautiful, yet are soft, almost impressionistic. The soft use of color makes the subjects glow off the paper’s surface. Perhaps this is what allows for movement, that final element needed to breathe life into a work of art, in a still image. In the reflection over the Trave, one can feel the warm air caressing the mind. The clouds that have spread across the sky, all trying to intertwine with the majestic rays. Touch once more the beauty before the coming night.
