Peter Vahlefeld’s work deals with the circulation and recycling of images. His paintings are both complex and multilayered, emotive pictorial palimpsests regarding his use of superimposed sources, which carry an iconographic set of references that can be easily accessed, if they are not obscured beyond recognition. Technically, these are no longer just paintings, but a combination of analog and digital painting, printing and collage. His mediums are over-painted advertisements torn out of art magazines and auction catalogues, double spread pages of books, museum shop merchandising, and all sort of printed matter. The artist’s expropriation of these sources is undertaken in order to rearrange their meaning content. Carved, rather than painted, the result of thick layers of paint and archival pigment prints channels a spectacular sense of depth and painterliness. Fast-paced strokes are offset with steady washes and the consistency of his paint is varied; thin translucent areas are complemented by thick opaque mark making. Inherent to the artist’s creative process is the element of destruction, rubbing out and erasing previous markings, where oil paint seems to have been dragged, pulled, splashed, and splattered across the canvas. At times buttery and fully suspended, at others sand-paper dry, his richly textured grounds are as interesting to examine close up as from a distance.
1 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
3 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
4 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
5 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
6 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
7 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
8 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
9 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
10 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
11 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
12 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
13 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
14 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
15 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
16 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
17 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
19 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
21 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
22 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
23 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
24 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
25 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
26 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
27 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
28 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
25 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
26 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm
27 Peter Vahlefeld | Painting | 120 x 120 cm