Henrik Potter at Lucas Hirsch

Artist: Henrik Potter

Exhibition title: Heads

Venue: Lucas Hirsch, Düsseldorf, Germany

Date: November 16, 2019 – January 11, 2020

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Lucas Hirsch, Düsseldorf

I once wrote a note that started like this:

This document is like ‘too much information’ made manifest. This is a warning. I would be more professional now and I will be more professional in the future, but this is where I’m at, at the moment.

So if I am, it remains to be seen.

At least I’m less insecure about the work as that particular show worked out.

I gave you the same warning though and my note to you continued like this:

…I’ve included the couple of written notes to Francesca about the paintings as I was making them as well.

So, now with a little hindsight and digestion I thought I’d let my fingers run again and write a little about these works and maybe the plans for the show.

As I wrote to Francesca, they came about quite fast just as I guess my head didn’t need to be thinking about Stuttgart so much and could throw me some new images and ideas.

I’ve always been drawn to certain scales:

The fingertip scale of mark or object in a work, that communicates care and devotion and intent.

The hand scale that connects a viewer more directly to a making of the object. That makes the work feel like it was made by someone like anyone.

The body scale which makes a work personable and anthropomorphised and human.

The room scale which sets the tone.

Nothing radical or ground-breaking, but I go back to thinking about these scales a lot in my making. Works might never reach the largest scale, but each work will include the smaller scales. A ‘body’ scale work will have moments of fingertip detail.

So these paintings are ‘hand’ works. I wanted them as portable like that and that scale speaks of personal objects, the home, mementos, icons, etc.

They are for me mementos and icons and treasures of art imagery that’s caught me in some way. What do we do with images and artworks we like? We buy a post card or a poster or an artist book or just see them on insta every now and then. I wanted to take that impulse of benign possession and love and pull at it. A slow looking at it. Nothing so crass as a copy. It’s not about trying to possess the actual image and failing by buying or making a cheap knock-off, it’s about honouring a work or a moment. It’s art about looking at and loving art if you want to be sentimental about it…

And so on…