Simon Nelke

The layers upon layers shed light on something submerged under them. Shadows of something visible rise to the foreground, transforming something concealed into a motif. Broadly speaking, this is the way the Hamburg-based artist Simon Nelke works.
From his early art student days, Nelke has been tackling human figures with remarkable persistence and stubbornness. Using a technique of crystallisation and erasure, he transforms them into mysterious protagonists. The principle of stacking or layering and the partial scraping away of the oil paint form the basis of his special technique, in which former layers of the work reappear. (Spectral-wise*) Nelke’s palette is extensive and his colour choices are unmistakable. Frequently, he produces an exotic or muted visual tone by using toned-down violet, blue, green, and pink shades, thereby underscoring the often magical effect of his pictures.

All of Nelke’s works reflect his creative self-confidence, articulated with the use of symbols. Dreamy, often enigmatic motifs from Eastern or Western culture or from a world of indigenous peoples reflect something hidden and play a key role in this young artist’s works. A subtractive spectral colour is a colour is not mixed with white or black. As described in Johannes Itten’s colour circle, the colours are cyan, magenta and yellow, and the colours that mixing two of the primary colours produces. If all three primary colours are mixed, the result is achromatic black or a broken colour, depending on the mixing ratio. Colours obtained by mixing two primary colours in perfect proportions are called ‘secondary colours’ - green, orange and violet. The other spectral colours are called ‘tertiary colours’.