Philipp Hölke

Art

Basorexia

A rush of pink, red and yellow oil, dragged until a figure is almost there — the urge named, the body only just held in the paint.

An oil canvas of thick, dragged strokes in pink, red, yellow, white and black; a dark curved form at lower left reads as a shoulder or hip against a vertical rush of red and pale paint.

Oil pulled across the canvas until it almost resolves — a dark curve at the lower left that could be a shoulder, a hip, the turn of a back, and above it a vertical rush of red and pale that will not sit as a figure and will not quite let go of being one. The title is the clinical word for the urge to kiss. The painting does not illustrate it. It is the temperature of it.

No lettering, no slogan, no diagram. The earlier works talk; this one stays in the paint. What is held is the motion of the brush while the urge is still in the hand.