Jörg Hofer - Geology

The experience of places has contributed to his continuous dialogue between color and matter and has prompted him to deal with light and earth, with real or imagined langscapes. Hofer’s works are about understanding the identities of places which enable new thresholds of enchantment, a new alchemy of color, new possibilities of verifying magical visions of nature.
A diffuse kind of light is inherent in his pictures, and it originates from his persevering quest for effects. They are rich in three-dimensional effects, and yet they point to natural elements. The marble dust is the substance of art, but also of earth, of the geology of history.
The rock, the water, and a certain idea of the horizon spontaneously trigger evocations and become immediate elements of the entire composition: everything is steeped in a special tone. Thus, a kind of nature has taken over the role of detachment after the artist has left the intense and fascinating places that are rich in sensations in order to recapture them in his studio. His works are detached enough to avoid a sterile competition with nature, which always remains the starting point. There is also a limit of coincidence, as seen by Henry Focillon who mentioned the relationship between ‚coincidence’ and ‚nature’ which only takes place „within the inner logics that the world of forms organizes“. Jörg Hofer directs this seeming coincidence toward a manner of painting that knows it can be a universal experience, beyond the limits of temporarily fashionable styles which would commit us all to the line of just another revival of Pop Art or to violent and deformed figuration, to virtual worlds, and to schizophrenic postmodern complexity.

To accompany the parallel exhibition that will be held at Schloss Tirol from August 17 to September 30, 2012, the catalogue Jörg Hofer, Maler will be published by Tappeiner Verlag (ISBN 978-88-7073-675-5).