Karin Krommes: Cosmic debris and swarming metals

Gough, Paul

Abstract

Karin Krommes' studio in Bristol is compact and clean; her pristine canvases are neatly stacked, their painted engines float in a talcum of whiteness, speaking of both mass and delicate weightlessness, of affinity and yet also of detachment. Neatly aligned on a narrow shelf small boxes contain the powdery remains of moths and fragile insects; other boxes contain the dismantled parts of model aircraft. Tucked between two boxes is a compact envelope. It contains exactly one hundred Austerlitz Insect Pins, used by
entomologists and curators to display dry mounted insect specimens; double coated, black enameled spring steel with very fine points, each pin 52mm long, with a filament-thin diameter of 0.7mm. Such a high level of specification is crucial both to the proper display of the specimen but also to Krommes whose work similarly relies on exactitude of observation, on the precise rendering of differing metal surfaces ...

There is something both touching and discomforting in the way that certain paintings relate to one another. The pairing of the two ejector seats, for example, is like a husband and wife team, a partnership in which the cushioned straps, the sagging seats, the knobs and dials have something in common but are finely differentiated, espousing their own unique, even idiosyncratic, character, which Krommes in her relentless pursuit of the particular pins down and paints with unnerving steeliness. This diptych remind us of a couple, their history of closeness, the complexity and entanglement of shared emotions.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Oct 28, 2009
• Deposit Date: Dec 6, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 27, 2016
• Journal: Karin Sabine Krommes-Swarm
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 3-6
• Keywords: Karin Sabine Krommes, Waterhouse & Dodd art gallery
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/991113
• Publisher URL: http://www.waterhousedodd.com
• Related Public URLs: http://www.ksk.lu/
• Contract Date: Feb 27, 2016