Tal R: Lords of Kolbojnik

"My art always finds its point of departure in contemporary life… I'd say that most of my works are about things I've picked up in all imaginable places other than in the world of art."
Tal R.

Lords of Kolbojnik is the first solo exhibition of Danish artist, Tal R. Playfully conceived as a "group show by one artist", this complex exhibition includes fifteen paintings and three large tapestries as well as an installation of thirty two drawings.

Tal R is has been described as a "painter's painter" due to the ease and exuberance of his approach to the medium. In his work the artist establishes vivid, expressive settings within a pictorial framework composed of three zones: a heading used as a palette, a central area in which colour becomes form, and a lower foundation. With these new works, he is characteristically vigorous and painterly, but he introduces fabric, paper and canvas collage in an active attempt to resist a single signature style. Some works then assume, as he puts it with typical irony, a new "unhygienic minimalism" or "wild minimalism without puritanism".

Lords of Kolbojnik, like his work in general, is rich in sexual innuendo, musical references, geographical narratives, religious allusions and humorous asides. "Kolbojnik" is a word that captured Tal R's imagination while on kibbutz in Israel. Used to describe the rubbish generated after dinner in the collective dining hall, the term suggests the creative potential of what is thrown out. When combined with "Lords", the meaning is inevitably satirical. These "lords" are not grand old patriarchs, but masters of cultural waste.

The installation of thirty two ink on paper drawings in the project room goes by the separate title, Burda, which refers to a German women's magazine known historically for its knitting and sewing patterns. Made over a period of two years, these detailed drawings depict women as metaphors of different states of mind.