Vertical, as in right-side up or upside down. It may be a matter of  perspective; a position in relation to something else. The title of Paco  Knöller’s exhibition, Senkrecht durch den Augenblick (Vertically  through the Moment), indicates a direction, a relationship, a motion—a  moving through. The artist’s sixth solo exhibition at Galerie Thomas  Schulte presents recent works in oil crayon and lacquer on wood,  including multi-panel large-formats that pull in multiple directions at  once. The works move between drawing and painting in a symbiosis of  color and line—unfurling vast color worlds and their changing  atmospherics.   A vertical motion, like a lightning strike. For Knöller, lines are  energetically charged, like electric currents. We feel this intensity in  the triptych opus 2. Here, the working title zentrieren (Centre)  suggests not just a physical position, but also a mental one—a focus,  finding balance and harmony, being present in the moment. With mostly  vertical lines that shoot and splinter up and down its panels, it  reminds not only of lightning or electricity, but also tree branches  wavering in a breeze. Any storminess is offset by the luminous yellow  that sprawls over it like a mist, coalescing with vaguely geometric  fields of muted blue and green. Like the full spectrum of light from the  sun, this flood of yellow contains multiple colors, even beyond the  immediately visible. The effect is similar in opus 1, in which  the vivid lines are primarily red and vein-like, shifting to deep blue  in some places and fading out in others, as though seen under skin, life  coursing through them.   

River systems, as seen from a bird’s eye view, also come to mind—a perspective that is hinted at in another work: unter mir der Himmel (The  Sky Below Me), an impossibly vibrant, expanding and contracting cosmos  that spans two horizontal panels. To say the contrast between it and the  two opus triptychs is like night and day would be an  oversimplification. Even this all-consuming black space is not  impermeable to the fields of blue, red, and pink that glow like color  filters held over a hidden light source. Whether these colors spill over  or shine through from underneath the black layer is not immediately  clear, as the resulting light is diffuse. The dry matteness of the black  oil crayon produces the porous texture and chalky, granular appearance  that facilitates its shimmering effect. While the circularity of the  multicolor lines in chaotic swirls and the solid blue ellipse that opens  in one corner offer wormholes to journey through.   

This cyclonic motion is magnified in jetzt (Now), a rich,  red single-paneled work. In it, a black spiral burrows just off center  and is left open at the outer edge, as though accumulating size and  force to suck us in. Its title is a call to action. It snaps its fingers  at us, while sending things tumbling into motion. It’s a moment of  change, but also something continuous, gradual, growing, as well as  dizzying and potentially overwhelming. Yet another vertical motion. Like  being upside down underwater, the sky growing distant under your feet.   

Here, the shifts in color expose bright flecks in the surface that  darken around the edges, tinged with inky residue like burning celluloid  film. Once again, simply referring to the work as ‘red’ proves  insufficient—not only because of the plurality of reds it contains. Its  ground also recalls a kind of meteorological radar, measuring shifts in  phase, changes in temperature—below, an incandescent orange-red, above,  icy undertones of blue. A change in conditions that can send a shock to  the system.   It’s this pulse that runs through the works in the exhibition. Referring to abrupt stops, for example in unter mir der Himmel,  where lines suddenly break off at the seam with no intention of  continuing into the adjacent panel, Knöller likens the effect to that of  reading a poem. Its unexpected line breaks and interrupted thoughts are  an activating force, prompting a continuous perceptual change.   

This is also reinforced by the ambiguity rooted in the works’ making:  in complicated relationships between over and under, and processes of  adding to and taking away. Through a slow and layered approach, Knöller  spreads oil crayon over a multicolored lacquer ground applied to a wood  panel. When lines are not extracted by knife, opening the top layer like  skin to release the underlying color, they are alternatively drawn on  top using an oil crayon of another color. Sometimes the lines drawn over  pick up precisely where those exposed from underneath left off, flowing  together seamlessly. Lines also blur, split, trail off, and bleed into  the surrounding space. This overall porousness is heightened by the  liquidity built into the works’ surface—in bubbling droplets of lacquer,  in fluctuations, in spots of color resembling water stains. A fluidity  that allows line and color, organic and geometric to synthesize.   

Within this constellation, small marks and fingerprints are also  visible: traces from hands and tools. The physicality of the artist’s  movements resonates in our experience of the work. As we are thrust into  the current, we extend ourselves to meet it, following its lines and  untangling our own patterns of thought. Whether the sky is above or  below, the implied verticality remains limitless. And, as Knöller points  out, it’s precisely this feeling of infinity that creates the  possibility of falling—like the fall into sleep that jolts us awake.     

Text by Julianne Cordray