Norbert Kirbach: Walking on thin Ice

In the organizer's words:

Zyko78

The Hanover-based artist Norbert Kirbach (*1979 in Halle) has been working as a self-taught artist since the mid-1990s and is active in urban spaces far beyond Hanover. For example, he has participated in various urban art projects, including Wall-Lords Shanghai, 40Grad Urbanart Festival Düsseldorf, Hafendampf Essen and Urban Nature Hannover. He works under the artist name Zyko78. In his current series of ceramic paintings, the artist breaks away from the classic canvas and abstract painting and searches for a new material aesthetic.
The fragility of the ceramic corresponds with the light painting technique based on Asian ink painting. The influence of Asian ink painting can be traced back to his long stay in Beijing (2008-2015) and his continuing close connection with China. This was one of the reasons behind the idea of using ceramics as a painting surface. Norbert Kirbach has been fascinated by Chinese and Japanese ceramic art ever since he studied East Asian art history in Berlin.

On thin ice

As a former graffiti painter in urban areas, he was also inspired by the different surfaces on which graffiti is created. The way colors or ink react and work on walls and tiles of urban architecture differs from the aesthetics of a canvas in the studio. Norbert Kirbach therefore rarely works with a conventional brush. Instead, he uses squeegees, rags, screwdrivers, eyeliner or even cotton buds as utensils. It is the material experimentation that interests the artist. For example, the alternating application and removal of layers of paint creates peculiar optical effects, from which delicate or ephemeral objects such as vases and flowers emerge. Artists and pictorial motifs are literally walking on thin ice. In the course of developing his pictorial ideas, Norbert Kirbach's painting is inspired by pieces of music, which - not always meant entirely seriously - provide the titles for the individual works.