Ulrich Wellmann
April 20 – July 9, 2021
Why do we not question the freedom of a line’s course? Why do we regard its creation as a random or incidental event, when we value the freedom of our own movement so much and, in fact, our entire bodily tension and attention can be focused on shaping a single line? Why do we not inquire into the convergence of lines, their possible dialogue, and their deviations from one another? And why do we overlook the fact that, with a multitude of lines, a new foundation can be laid?
The single line seems simple, fleeting, and insignificant, and the accumulation of lines appears as an arbitrary play of movements, directions, and shape progressions. However, how steeply or sharply we hold the pencil for the line, how we manage the pressure applied, how worn down or sharpened the pencil is – these factors determine the expressive form of the line. For Ulrich Wellmann, the togetherness, convergence, and opposition of line movements, their assembly, and their color interplay express concentrated states of mind that demand the highest level of attention.
How can the single line, whether fine, delicate, almost disappearing, or strong, emphatic, and focusing, appear in the initially free and open field of the unmarked format? How fast or slow can it move forward, does it take a straight path or begin to twist or curve, make a hook or a turnaround? Does it initially move in a writing direction or counter to it, or does it seek the lower or upper part: all these are an immense number of decisions associated with a single line. And how many decisions are involved when multiple lines and different colors come into play, and the line no longer remains individually maintained but plows through the surface as a cascading motion?
Ulrich Wellmann recently returned to drawing after many years devoted to oil painting and watercolor – both of which differ fundamentally in their material execution. Oil painting operates with the viscosity of the paint and constantly requires a supply of material. The amount of material applied in one stroke depends on the brush’s width and the length of its bristles. In watercolor, the brush moves almost effortlessly over the wet, swelling surface. If the entire paper has been moistened, control over where the pigments are directed becomes limited, which contours arise from the brush’s trace, and how diluted the pigment spreads during a brush movement.
In contrast, colored pencil drawing holds a middle ground. Its stroke is light, controlled, and can be executed at very different speeds. An extensive palette of colors is immediately available without the need for mixing, and a continuous flow of material is maintained, so the stroke in its trace never has to break off.
Wellmann enthusiastically embraced this new range of possibilities last year, using it to express spontaneously articulated emotional states.
While drawing, he can focus on the single line, on its fate in different directions, turns, rotations, and nervousness. He can let it take either a short or a very long path, so that the line seems to get lost. Does the line maintain its course despite all its turns and directional deviations? Does it find its way back to itself, or does its path become so complex that it can no longer remember it, advancing through its own thicket while entangling itself in the process?
Wellmann can choose the paired line, the line that begins to converse with itself or that relates to someone else, with whom it seeks a common path or dialogue piece by piece. How far does one go parallel along a stretch of the path, how does one distinguish oneself color-wise from the other, or mark one’s difference only in the deviation from the path? Do the two lines lose sight of each other after their branching paths, or do they find their way back together?
In almost all drawings, Wellmann has opted for line bundles, a community of fate formed by bundled lines that flow in approximately the same directions while still keeping the possibility of internal deviations open. These are bundles that taper to equal lengths at both ends, almost merging into a single line, forming a hinge, and usually only becoming visible as individual lines in the middle. The center of the line bundles appears to be bent downward as if by gravity. Wellmann has referred to this form in his work as a form of laughter. It is a curved shape pointing to a fictional center, the midpoint of the radius indicated by the curvature, which usually lies outside the paper and could suggest our vantage point. However, it could also represent an experience from the circus dome of our lives, where we can no longer see the point at which the artist’s swings are held together.
The centering on a midpoint, the stretching out to two endpoints, can hint at human perception, which is fundamentally organized in a dual way: eyes, ears, nose, and even the mouth with its left and right. In the convergence of his dual sensors and extremities toward a physical center, the human being unfolds his movement and action. It seems that this form in Wellmann’s sheets is more than just a hint of cheerfulness. It represents a general reference to the situatedness of our humanity.
In some sheets, there are not just one but several such oscillation forms, and one might object that this contradicts such an interpretation. But do we always agree with ourselves in every situation? Are there not constellations where we show different faces, where we have to multiply ourselves?
It is striking that the placement of a drawn line bundle immediately prompts an inquiry into the context, questioning what space and what freedom or constraint it grants to the oscillation, and that without this contextual inquiry, the bundle cannot articulate itself in its specificity. The line bundle thus automatically transforms its surroundings into a drawing ground, against and within which it stands out.
With the single or paired line, it was not yet clear how the drawing ground, as the open white surface, would transform into a sign ground, into a structured and marked surface. This, however, is precisely the consequence of placing line bundles: they demand an attribution of meaning through their environment.
What fate, what determination does the line bundle acquire? Is it each time a different immersion, floating, or sinking of the line bundles into a differently characterized drawing ground, a different revelation of their strength, dynamics, tension, possibilities?
The grammar of Wellmann’s drawings thus consists of a complex interweaving of single line, line bundle, and line ground. The line ground can sometimes become a sea of lines when the single line or a multitude of line strands intertwine to such an extent that no isolated or rhythmically structured form figures can emerge.
How does the single line or line bundle assert itself against such a sea of lines? Does it sink into it, can it survive and resurface? What does it expect, what fate does it hold, how does it move, where does it float? How does it deal with the assumed gravity of sinking and at the same time swinging and stretching out?
The interplay of the three levels of line, bundle, and ground raises the question: how consistent are the single line, the bundle, and the ground? Do Wellmann’s drawings not rather show us that this question can only be resolved through the interaction of the three levels?
Is not the enigma of the creative acts of art precisely that there are no fixed standards for form, that there can be no individually beautiful line, no concentrated line bundle, and no multilayered ground on their own, but that everything must rub against each other to present something corresponding to the complex relationship of humans to their world?
“Light swell” describes the state of a sea in which a person can achieve a balance between the swinging up and down of the sea and their own movement. Transferred to human experiences, it means being thrown into the most diverse activities of our worldly coexistence and our simultaneous effort to keep our head high enough to drift along contentedly, not to go under, and to find a path that, however, we may lose again with further swells.
Rolf Hengesbach