Kenneth Bergfeld’s portraits are avatars often depicted with a shell of hair which oscillates between a bushy helmet and a sacred halo. These mystified beings, eyes obscured under a silky, velvety mass or retro-futuristic sunglasses, move between the interior and exterior, revealed without revealing themselves. The paintings are a result of the superimposition of three levels of presence: their materiality, the aura of the characters, and their internal landscapes.
In addition to this psychological ambiguity, the paintings encompass a spatial and temporal meta-reality. The tight frame around these haloed faces, the realistic representation, palpable materiality and the mixture of virtual and artificial elements frees them from the constraints of time. Kenneth Bergfeld stretches out a stylistic line that begins with sacred orthodox icons, passes through the floating strangeness of a Tarkovskian aesthetic, and leads into a digital future.
Burning Boyfriend, 2022, oil on canvas, 200 × 150 cm (78 11⁄16 x 59 1⁄16 inches)
Favorite Nerve, 2022, oil on canvas, 200 × 150 cm (78 11⁄16 x 59 1⁄16 inches)
Mixed Bizness, 2022, oil on canvas, 200 × 150 cm (78 11⁄16 x 59 1⁄16 inches)
Saw Lightning, 2022, oil on canvas, 40 × 30 cm (15 ¾ × 11 ¾ × ¾ inches)
side of the road, 2022, oil on canvas, 40 × 30 cm (15 ¾ × 11 ¾ × ¾ inches)
Kenneth Bergfeld’s (*1990) lives and works in Cologne. The artist’s recent exhibitions include ‘Human Performance’, Jan Kaps, Cologne (2022); Onsen Confidential, Mujin-to Production, Tokyo (2022); ‘Fast Day Menu’, Project Native Informant, London (2022); ‘I, Spider’, Project Native Informant (2021); ‘The Spire, Pt. 1’, Hospitality, Cologne (2018), ‘The Spire, Pt. 2’, Hospitality, Cologne, ‘Von den Strömen der Stadt’, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2016); and ‘The Politics of Portraiture’, Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco (2016), among others.