Karl Bielik

Karl Bielik lives and works in London. His paintings have been in numerous shows at home and abroad, including The John Moores Painting Prize, The RA Summer Show, WAC Art Contemporary, BEEP Painting Prize, The Marmite Prize and The London Open. He is a member of Contemporary British Painting and is the Founder and Director of Terrace Gallery in London. Bielik also writes and performs in Lark who are signed to Standard Lamp Records.

Statement: Working on a multitude of paintings at a time, Karl Bielik's brew of abstractions are developed in batches. Irregular canvases cover his studio walls and floors, where he shifts from one painting to another, experimenting playfully with mark making. Formal lines taken from photographs and diagrams contrast loose oily wounds, thick emulsions offset light glazes and dribbles. Bielik fluctuates between techniques, pushing and challenging the paint until a kind of harmony is met. In contrast to this emotive imagery, banal solitary words form Bielik's titles, tempering and balancing the melancholy character of his paintings; the result, a prolific collection of finely tuned sophisticated studies.