Karl Horst Hödicke

Karl Horst Hödicke Paar 1979 Synthetic resin on canvas 190 x 130 cm. Framed under glass. Signed, dated and titled 'KH Hödicke "Paar" 79' verso on canvas. Provenance Private collection, Italy Exhibitions Catanzaro 2011 (Museo delle Arti di Catanzaro), Berlin Ottanta, Pittura Irruente, exhib.cat., p.34 with col. illus. Karl Horst Hödicke finds his motifs almost without exception in the surroundings of his studio in Berlin. The motifs expand out of the paint in broad, rapid brushstrokes, “the elements that come together represent an urban iconography of the direct day-to-day experiencing of completely normal [...] surroundings. Hödicke will never become a typical neighbourhood painter, however. The implication of the everyday situation creates constantly new images with changing light, changing colours and changing moods. The motifs are repeated, but the images are always different. [...] And yet it remains a mystery to the outsider how all these seemingly insignificant motifs of the area around Dessauer Strasse actually become large formats that hardly address the situation of Dessauer Strasse at all, primarily, they address us. But perhaps the desire to understand one’s immediate surroundings, when represented by a painting, is a paradigm for the ability to understand the world”, writes Uwe M. Schneede (in: Berlin & Mehr. K.H. Hödicke, exhib.cat. Kunstverein Hamburg 1984, p.19). The life-size rear view of a couple on offer here was certainly also found by the artist in this environment. He emphasises the contrast between male and female quite naturally through colour – the figure of the man represented in powerful black-blue, that of the woman, on the other hand, delicate and light in white. The incarnate parts are the same shade of pink as the background, the couple quasi blends into its surroundings.