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Andreas Nottebohm (image 1)




















ANDREAS NOTTEBOHM

The Edges of Time


June
6 - July 2, 2009

Opening Reception June 6, 2009

6:00-8:00 pm


San Rafael California, June 1, 2009: The Diptych from artist Andreas Nottebohm’s “Edges of Time” exhibition, June 6-July 2, 2009 at Houston’s New Gallery, is a further, exciting iteration of the artist’s “Raw Metal,” series. The two-paneled piece is a leap in size, complexity, and technique designed to be a ‘step-along-the-way’, ultimately scaling up to what Nottebohm envisions as the room-sized “Nottebohm Chapel.”
 
The Diptych, and other pieces in Nottebohm’s show, represent the artist’s exploration of the intersection of light, space, and time, the further understanding and representation of which is a goal of the physical sciences as well as the nexus of Nottebohm’s artistic practice. There is irony in the fact that Nottebohm’s exploration of
the multi-dimensional universe takes place in a realm that exists only within a few millimeters of the surface of the aluminum, and more recently, copper sheets that he “paints,” or perhaps more precisely, “sculpts.” Using plain sheet aluminum and copper as medium, Nottebohm
manipulates the metal in ways that transform it into a realm in which the complex and fierce interplay of light and dimensionality suggests a
depth that is cosmic and realms that may or may not exist beyond our own.
 
All of Nottebohm’s “Raw Metal” work achieves the kind of extraordinary depth and dynamism that has viewers trying to tuck their arms into folds in the metal that are more perceptual than real, as well as peeking behind the piece to see if there is some magical generator producing effects that conjure up ‘scapes of unparalleled beauty, strangeness and complexity'. “Magic” is not a word that Nottebohm particularly likes, he would rather that his work be viewed in terms of
the scientific interaction between light photons and the precise milling of metal that creates an effect that is “magical” if not “magic.”
 
Nottebohm’s diptych takes his unexcelled metal-working technique a step further, according to the artist, “painting fields of light that touch and shift against one another,” the interplay of the panels adding new levels to the output of an artist whose work is at once an invitation and a challenge to explore alternative realms of thought and perception.


Richard Rapaport