Volker Hueller’s Hand-Coloured Etchings at Timothy Taylor Gallery

LONDON.- Timothy Taylor Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in London by Berlin-based artist Volker Hueller as part of the gallery’s The Viewing Room programme.

Hueller’s hand-coloured etchings exploit all the associative power of the etched line: spidery trails mordantly tracing care-worn physiognomies and smoke-filled rooms. The atmospheric remains of a dark European history lurk within the cracks and crevices of these complex drawings, made up of interlocking fragments and planes. Jaundiced, cruel and complacent faces emerge from these jagged forms, drawing on numerous historical references, such as the élan of Beardsley’s fin de siècle drawings or Klee’s expressive poetics of line. As Ian Bourland writes in Artforum, ‘Hueller’s process, of acid etching and hand application of faded watercolor and shellac, imparts the pictures with a sense of timelessness and gravity, as if they came from a fully formed Edwardian nightmare.’

Volker Hueller, ‘Barflies’, 2010. Etching with watercolour and shellack on paper. Paper: 11 1/2 x 9 1/2 in./29.5 x 24 cm. Image: 9 3/4 x 7 3/4 in./24.8 x 19.7 cm. ©Volker Hueller; Courtesy, Timothy Taylor Gallery, London

Suppressed violence and sexual tension permeate Hueller’s louche and blasted landscapes; in Schneid, 2010, two battered figures confront each other menacingly. In Narziss, 2010, a beaten lone Narcissus urinates into a pool, amidst swirling autumnal leaves, while in Braindrain, 2010, whiskery profiles suggest a world of gossip and intrigue.

In addition to these apparently narrative-laden yet ambiguous hand-coloured etchings, Hueller’s large-scale canvasses are purely abstract: created from fabric scraps patch-worked together and then over-painted. Their fascination lies in the differing light effects achieved from the contrasting fabrics: fake fur and leather, jute and metallic sheeting, cut and sewn into Hueller’s trademark interlocking and broken forms. Roberta Smith writing in the New York Times, observed that ‘the textured surfaces are highly reactive, changing as the light shifts, or as you move about. These works pile on the references — Yves Klein, Manzoni, Marca-Relli, Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and even Julian Schnabel — but carry the weight.’

Volker Hueller was born in 1976 in Forchheim, Germany. He studied at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg, under Professor Norbert Schwontkowski. Hueller’s work has previously been featured in two group exhibitions at Timothy Taylor Gallery: The Mouse, The Bird and the Sausage in 2007, and Ventriloquist in 2009. Hueller recently exhibited at Eleven Rivington and Salon 94 in New York, and Produzentengalerie, Hamburg, Germany. He lives and works in Berlin.