Whitechapel Gallery: Gert & Uwe Tobias

Exhibiting at Whitechapel were Gert & Uwe Tobias. The Tobias brother's play with the relationship between geometric design and collage. Their playful use of paint attacks the eye visually while the collaged photo's of domestic objects or animals draw a sense of relation from it's audience. What I found interesting about the Tobias brother's pieces was the way they used a grid as the foundation of every painting. Sometimes it was hidden by layers of paint and in other's they made it clear of the grids functions in creating the work. This way of working comes across as a set formula used throughout their paintings. I feel this is similar to my practice as currently I am sticking to the same formula when creating work to try and obtain consistency within a series of works. Something else that appealed to me was the way the Tobias brothers manipulated the quality of certain lines within the piece. For example in this piece, both the grid and dots that frame the figurative images are fragmented slightly stopping the grid becoming too overpowering. This contrasted with the solid lines used to outline the figurative images produce a sense of depth in an otherwise very flat piece.

 Seeing these pieces has produced a clarity that will help me progress my work forward. The use of geometric abstraction along with the playful gesture of the work is something I wish to expand on more in my practice.