Christoph von Weyhe
Feb 22 - Apr 5, 2022

Christoph von Weyhe (born 1937 in Halle/Saale) has spent the past 60 years painting and drawing scenes that are based on a particular view of the industrial harbor of Hamburg. 

The artist has lived in Paris since the 1950’s. Almost every year since his move to Paris, he travels to the Hamburg Harbor, where he lived as a child, and spends a day or two making very large gouache sketches of the seascape. He sketches mostly early mornings or at night, creates and experiences these plain air sketches in an intense event. Von Weyhe urgently renders massive rough drawings, like a gestural snapshot. Capturing what is visible to him in this moment: fragments of the architecture, reflections on the water, the air, the silence. 

He then brings these large sketches back to Paris and spends the rest of the year making paintings that are based on these gouaches.

These impressions become the basis of penetratingly rendered paintings that seem almost woven in their density and creation of light effects. They are paintings that von Weyhe spends 3 - 6 months making, and which viewers can spend a long time to soaking in. The artist paints in layers of very fine cross hatching, which create a unique sense of depth and light. A kind of fog, or haze, might be an appropriate description, but the end effect is always one of paint. The concreteness of color and paint remain most present. 

In recent years, his paintings have become more gestural, getting closer to the look and feel of the original sketches. The underpainting still has the same time labored intense cross hatching and layering. But the foreground forms that suggest abstracted cranes, industrial outlines, ship details and harbor lights in the distance have become more urgent, loose and colorful. 

This looser style is complex and noteworthy in the works in this upcoming show. The exhibited paintings showcase the skill and unique style he has developed over decades. What is new, is his indifference to the amount of time spent painting the backgrounds, and his faith in his own instincts. These new works are reduced, almost abstract, with choices of colors that are bold. This reflects a yearning and an odd sense of time in the works themselves, being pushed. The desire to create, to grab and hold onto, and also expel and be done with it. 

Christoph von Weyhe’s paintings absolutely need to be seen in person. They are made for human eyes and brains, not cameras. They are made for a viewing experience that unfolds over time. When one looks closely, the bolder strokes are also deftly considered and planned – they have a precise underground of cross hatching and the color is very deliberately mannered. The gesture is there, but the execution is dedicated and extremely considered. Craftsmanship and composition are both joined in these paintings as they are in his entire body of work. The artist’s engagement with his motif is pure, structured, unapologetic and deep. 

Mike Bouchet