Clemens Wolf

PARACHUTE SERIES

Clemens Wolf, born 1981, lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Since his graduation at the University of Arts Linz, he is fascinated by dilapidated material like fences in front of dumps, abandoned warehouses and unfinished buildings.

In his latest works, he sets his main focus on the process of transformation haunted by his own history. Old discarded parachutes (he is a passionate parachutist) are transformed into sensual objects. After they are immersed in epoxide resin they are layed out in tondi, hung or stand up as sculpture or stretched on frames as paintings, every crease being arranged meticulously and finally left to dry.

When we examine Clemens Wolf’s obsessive and mysterious work, it’s obvious that the frontier between painting, sculpture and drawing places a great importance. The surface of the pieces with its powerfully vivid palette, reveals a world that is almost organic. While the artist sees the fabric’s contractions as a stylized representation of decomposition and decay, the resin he uses to hold the folds in place gives the works a distinctive glossy aspect and an intensity that is brought out by the delicacy of the coiled up parachute cords. The choice of such a lightweight and an aerial object as the parachute conjures up the fundamental notion of gravity.