Peter Bonde

We are delighted to present Peter Bonde's second solo exhibition, New Paintings (Keep on Keeping on), at Galerie Barbara Thumm.

The new paintings pick up threads from earlier works and series, revisiting them with the freedom of someone who knows his own vocabulary well enough to dismantle it. In doing so, the works both invoke and disrupt the language of classical abstract painting. Sweeping gestures, saturated colour fields and drips nod to the tradition of abstract painting, yet they are repeatedly interrupted, overpainted or set against images that refuse to stay in the background.

New Paintings / Keep on Keeping on is thus both a continuation and a stubborn act of defiance. It asks what it means to keep painting after decades of questioning painting itself, and finds an answer in the act of continuing, of returning to old images, pulling them apart and putting them back together without smoothing over the seams.

Peter Bonde graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1982 (Copenhagen, Denmark). He taught at the Funen Art Academy (Odense, Denmark, 1994–1996) and was professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (1996–2005). He represented Denmark alongside Jason Rhoades at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999, and in 2019 his works were shown at the 58th Venice Biennale as part of Danh Vo’s installation.