ROMAN KLONEK is one of the leading representatives of the German printmaking scene. Looking at Klonek’s work, one quickly recognizes his preference for reduced shapes and
animal-like creatures that sometimes recall the birth of the comic strip.

From March 11 to April 23, Jörg Heitsch will be showing new woodcuts by Roman Klonek.

On his journeys into strange worlds, Roman Klonek searches for those encounters with the unknown. He uses a pictorial language from concrete and abstract painting partly with the colorfulness from pop art and narrative elem ents.

Klonek’s fascination with mixed creatures, fantasy characters, and graphic imagery dates back to his childhood, which was influenced by Russian and Polish cartoons.

In the contemporary art scene, Roman Klonek is considered one of the most outstanding artists working in the “woodcut” printing technique. As an actual art form, the woodcut developed as early as the 8th century in Japan, but it also has a long tradition in Germany, from Albrecht Dürer to Karl Schmidt Rottluff to Jörg Immendorf.

Considering the current art trends, which are strongly influenced by the variety of digital possibilities, Klonek represents a special position here. The artist has specialized in the so-called “lost cut”. In this process, the various color layers of the image are printed in layers on the substrate by gradually removing them – and by means of a single printing plate. In several steps, a multicolored image is thus created in an exclusive edition of a maximum of 8 copies. Thus, the editions made individually in the hand print, which have their own peculiarities due to each color print, are considered originals.