Genaro Strobel
Size
07 03 21
11 07 21

Huge and all unique: In his solo exhibition ‹Size› Genaro Strobel shows ten delicate and monumental wood engravings on paper. They are up to four meters high and seven meters wide. During his time as scholarship holder at the Charlotte Prinz-Haus in Darmstadt, the artist created 68 of these unusually large formats. After his departure from the artist residence, a selection of his prints is now on show at the Kunsthalle Darmstadt.

Genaro Strobel had already developed the technique of wood engraving in previous years. The scholarship gave him the opportunity to experimentally expand his working method to extremely large formats. The starting point are photographs, the resolution of which Genaro Strobel increases on the computer by stacking several images. Based on these templates, a laser cuts the printing blocks pixel by pixel from carefully selected peeled veneer panels over several hours. Due to Strobel's artistic method, the grain of the wood species–including birch, pine or poplar–shines through again and again in the finished prints as an imprint of nature.

In many of his wood engravings, Genaro Strobel counters the accuracy of the camera and laser with the freedom of the brushstroke: gestural traces alternate with geometric shapes. Where the printmaking process usually results in identically reproducible images, the wood in the background survives with Genaro Strobel. It acts as a reminder of human intervention in nature. But also as a natural relic from which a magical power emanates.

A catalog to accompany the exhibition will be published by Hatje Cantz in March 2021.

Genaro Strobel lives and works in Berlin. Born in Frankfurt am Main in 1984, he completed his studies at the University of Graphic and Book Art in Leipzig, where he added graphic elements to his painting for the first time.

The exhibition
is supported by