SETZKASTEN

Setzkasten

A Setzkasten is a small cabinet hung on the wall — a grid of compartments, each one waiting to hold something chosen. A shell. A figurine. A spool of thread. You decide what goes in, and once it is placed, you know immediately whether it belongs or whether something has to go.

The decision is the work.

These paintings were heavily overworked. Layer over layer, form buried under form, colour painted out and painted over until something quieter began to emerge. What looks like stillness on the surface is the result of a long process of removal — of asking, again and again, what do I keep and what has to go.

This is not collage or arrangement. It is closer to excavation, or to editing: starting from too much and working toward what can stay. The compartments in these paintings are not placed next to each other like objects on a shelf. They survived. They are what remained after everything unnecessary was taken away.

The quietness in this series is not emptiness. It is the quietness of a decision made — of a form that has been tested by overpainting and is still there, still holding, still asking to remain visible.

What you see is what was kept.