Konrad Henker | Radierungen

Konrad Henker | Etchings in Collaboration with the Leonhardi Museum Dresden

Opening: April 13, 2010 | 7 PM

Born in 1979 in Weimar, Konrad Henker takes the artistic tradition of "sur le motif" into new dimensions. Unlike the current trend of working from photographic references, Henker opts for a path rooted in individual and personal experience as the foundation for his artistic discoveries. He seeks the immediacy of the impression on-site, so to speak, "in situ."

Following a meticulous and thorough planning process, Henker spends several weeks amidst glaciers and rock faces, in the eternal ice of the alpine high mountains, to etch plates up to one meter in size directly on location. These are journeys of creation that evoke early scientific expeditions, but Henker is not driven by isolation or psycho-physical extremes. His focus is on a motif that can only be observed and studied in that specific place. It is not an escape from civilization or a longing for what is absent that motivates him, but rather the quest for the elemental here and now.

To the act of seeing, experiencing, and witnessing, an additional layer is added: the etchings are refined in the studio using aquatint and brush etching. The printed sheets do not necessarily reveal the effort involved in their creation. The lightness and dynamism of Konrad Henker's works convey an exhilarating fascination for the authentic, captured through a thoughtful eye.

In contrast to many artists of his generation, Konrad Henker exclusively employs the technique of etching. He studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden from 1999 to 2005 and was a master student under Ralf Kerbach from 2005 to 2007. Konrad Henker lives and works in Dresden.