HERBERT A. JUNG
Paintings, Abstract Portraits and  Sculptures

Radiant red and luminous white keep the fragile texture of grid bars in a visual balance. This balancing act discharges itself like an incidental tête-à-tête between the arbitrary forms of colourfully glazed natural stones and the strict linearity of an industrially manufactured steel grid. What is seemingly arbitrary in these Pebblesteels is nevertheless, through a consciously organized system, brought into harmony.

The three dimensional formative works which were in the early years simply the assemblage of raw stones and in later years their combination with steel grids and colour - to become the Pebblesteels- represent the prelude to the wider two dimensional artistic engagement with the paradoxes of chance and control, openness for playful experimentation and serious resolve for selection.

Aside monochromic works like in the group Fini/Infini; predominantly in black and white, often but not always strong colours are the dominating element in the work of Herbert A. Jung. The initial red, black and white - later on joined by yellow and blue as well as their blends - are used by the artist with many different techniques, some developed by himself, and applied in abstract forms to paper and canvas.

The work group ShootingStars suggests already in their title the idea of the ephemeral. The transient in the sense of motion stands paradigmatically for the spontaneity of the moment in which the thought/ idea arises and is cast through intensive colouring into a comprehendible form.

In the series of Cascades this impulse of spiritual dynamic is set free as seemingly springing, precipitating widths of colour which appear to be arrested in their motion for a fraction of a second, only to disappear finally in the nowhere.

The immaterial materializes, hidden structures appear spontaneously at the surface of the frozen image and instil order into the process of creative dissolution.

Structure and chaos - between these two poles suspended the work of HAJ is to be found. In the experimental search for balance of the forces arise works which claim neither to be metaphysical nor the offspring of existential struggle. It is rather in the field of tension between matter and subject that abstract condensation of colour and line appear - like in the Aquarium series. Here the manifestation of free will, the mise en scène of colour and form are an expression of joy if not bliss.