Matthias Groebel

Late one night in Cologne circa 1989, Matthias Groebel had his television on mute in his home—it was in this moment that he found the images that would come to occupy his paintings. At Ulrik, a selection of these haunting works are on view—the artist’s first New York exhibition in twenty years. For these pieces, Groebel eschewed depicting celebrities or recognizable figures, opting for anonymous characters, rendered in grainy detail, from low-budget broadcast programs instead. For instance, Untitled (156), 1995, shows a man, hair slicked into a ponytail and (presumably) naked, save for a gold chain. He appears to be wincing, but the expression on his face is indecipherable—it could be ecstasy, or even pain. The words Bird Man and a circular fluorescent light linger over his shoulder. To make the works in this presentation, Groebel input TV footage into Deluxe Paint, an editing software that can be programmed to separate an image into layers based on traditional painting techniques. He then processed this information into a machine of his own design fitted with airbrush dispensers to sequentially build his one-meter-square canvases. Television allowed for Groebel to access all manner of subcultural detritus, guided by an impulse to hold onto something fleeting: a form of memory that lasts only briefly.

A group of later works here, based on photographs taken by Groebel himself, continue the artist’s granulated, low-resolution language. In Untitled (061), 2003, a shirtless musician is adumbrated by a greenish glow, his sweat palpable via glistening pixelated dabs of paint. Even though his “hand” is mitigated by the machine, Groebel’s presence is felt everywhere. A lurking familiarity pervades Untitled (176), 2002, which is based on a picture that was taken near the gallery, but two decades prior. Pinkish-gray fish rendered with a lifeless sheen are amassed in a plastic container—a yellow price tag reading 1.99, written in faded black Sharpie, is wedged into the composition’s right-hand corner. The work funnels us back into a slippage of ordinary memory; it reflects our own accumulation of images, ingested yet forgotten.

—Madeline Casteel