Henning Strassburger: Mai 2023 (Cat. CFA Contemporary Fine Arts Berlin)

In his new paintings, Strassburger seems to abandon abstraction in favor of the human body, one of the main interests of figurative art. And yet the images show bodies under water, in the shower and in the swimming pool, slowly blurring the boundary between the body and its environment. The fact that water can take on any color and any physical state is taken up by Strassburger in his own color palette. The suddenness and tranquility inherent in water create a myriad of tension of utmost importance for the medium of painting. Water distorts, reflects and blurs shapes – it is these properties that make it one of the most desirable motifs within the productive field between abstract and figurative art. For Strassburger, however, the issue between abstraction and figuration isn’ t of interest. Much more, water and its proximity allow for the fragmentation of the body as well as “ situations that can resolve in any direction” . Imbued with a web of cultural connotations, Strassburger takes up the symbolism of water, its flow and tension for the combination between surface and depth in the painting, creating an atmosphere of both easiness and melancholy. Figures floating in bathtubs, swimming pools and hot tubs hover between depiction and poetic abstraction.