Martin Kobe creates dynamic architectural visions in paint: virtual spaces that, while meticulously executed, seem provisional and in the process of collapse.
Martin Kobe’s paintings reference architectural modernism, and its emphasis on sheer horizontality, open-plan living, and visually bisecting lines as much as the seamless set architecture of popular science fiction. Interior and exterior views are compressed using interlocking horizontal planes. Sharp, vertiginous walls and ceilings inter-cut with balconies, picture windows and coulisses, leading the eye around the canvas. Martin Kobe’s palette is vibrant but with each painting, the overall hues are restricted, either a tight range of deep reds, silver blues or acid greens that enhance the emptiness in the work: utopia devoid of the mess of the everyday.
Source: White Cube