Bruno Kurz (born 1957 in Langenargen at Lake Constance) is a German painter. He primarily works on reflective surfaces such as metal, creating paintings of great luminosity and depth – expansive colour fields with vague allusions to landscape and flora. Apart from painting, his work comprises large art installations fashioned through light.
Biography
Bruno Kurz spent his childhood in Kressbronn am Bodensee (Lake Constance). He is the oldest son of Rupert Kurz (1933–2023), a metal worker, and his late wife Gertrud Kurz (1934–2007). During his secondary education at the Knaben-Realschule (all-boys secondary modern) Lindau, Bruno Kurz was introduced to oil painting by his mathematics teacher. After finishing his Abitur (German university entrance qualification) at the Technisches Gymnasium (comparable to grammar school) Friedrichshafen, he started an engineering degree, which was disrupted by being called up for Zivildienst (compulsory paid community work as alternative to military service).
Subsequently, he did a year's travel, going by ship to Israel and Rhodes, where he created his first group of paintings and finally decided to study painting. After his return, Kurz studied at the Freie Kunstschule (Free Art School) Stuttgart under :de:Gerd Neisser (1980–81) and at the :de:Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe (Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts) under Per Kirkeby and :de:Max G. Kaminski (1981–86).
Bruno Kurz has been concerned with particular aspects of light and colour since his youth. While still studying, he undertook extensive travels to Southern Europe and India (1983/84 and 1986/87), later to Mexico and Canada. The experience of nature and new realms of colour and light led to numerous experiments with painting surfaces and colour substances, and major work cycles evolved. A project grant on the theme of "Heimat" enabled his first journey to Northern Europe in 1998, where he visited the Outer Hebrides, the Oakland Islands, the Scottish Highlands and Bergen in Norway. Celtic symbols and their typical merging of circle and cross, Irish-Scottish monasticism and its connections with the Lake Constance region, together with impressions of nature formed the basis for a large project-related exhibition in his home town Kressbronn am Bodensee, featuring expansive installations.
"What's important is, that an artist just like our 20th century Canadian painters, goes north in search of the light and in search of interesting themes. Everyone knows that the northern artists went south for discovering the light. The best example of that is Provence. But here we have an artist who goes north because the light is just as beautiful, strong and pure. So Bruno Kurz comes along in the depths of winter and goes round the Hebrides in his kayak and is impressed by what he sees. Without any photos, of course, he goes back to his studio, and paints with a good distance, this distance that is so important for painters so they are not overwhelmed by nature, but have had time and space to absorb and process it."
From 2000 onwards, such experiences of landscape effected a new series of pictures: Over ten years, he worked on his Hebrides Cycle, where, for the first time, the horizontal layers of delicate colour fields emerged that characterise his work; they would become a core aspect of his painting practice up to 2020.
Since then, his practice has been changing. The previously meditative mood of his paintings has given way to expressive gestures and disturbances. The ephemeral, the transient and the conveyance of landscape as manifestation and interplay of elementary forces become increasingly apparent.
Bruno Kurz lives and works in Karlsruhe. He shows his work in one-person and group exhibitions in galleries in Germany, Canada and Switzerland and has solo presentations at international art fairs.
Awards
1986 Project grant, Stiftung Kunstfonds (Art Funds Trust) Bonn
1988–1989 Bursary Kunststiftung (Arts Foundation) Baden-Württemberg
1992–1993 Postgraduate studies: Interdisciplinary Media, Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart (Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts) 1998 Travel bursary to Northern Europe for the project Heimat 2006 Project grant, Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Deutschland (Foundation for Arts and Culture Germany)