Lemon Hill Gallery will be displaying the water colours of Joachim Kruse, better known as Jochen, in an exhibition titled Down the Road and Up the Hill from Sunday, June 9 for four weeks.
Kruse was born in Mainz, Germany, in 1936, and trained at the art school known as Werkkunstschule in Wiesbaden. The first two semesters were based on the Vorkurs taught by Johannes Itten at the Bauhaus, a quite revolutionary school of art and design in Germany from 1919 to 1933, which had to close under pressure from the Nazi regime. He also studied graphic design, calligraphy (under Poppl) and illustration.
After three years of art school, he worked in advertising agencies in Frankfurt where he met his wife Ulla. They eloped to live on the Greek islands for a year and married on returning to Frankfurt. Their daughter was born in 1962 and two years later they migrated to Australia where he worked in an advertising in Brisbane and their son was born.
They returned to live again in Greece and Germany, but then migrated to Australia for a second time in 1970 when he mainly freelanced as a graphic designer and illustrator for publishers in Melbourne. In 1975 they moved to Clifton Creek.
As a family they travelled in a VW Combi-Van around Europe and Morrocco in 1980 and he held a very successful exhibition at his parent’s place in Mainz that year and in 1981.
In Australia he has had solo exhibitions in both Canberra and Melbourne and several times in the Robb Street Gallery and the East Gippsland Art Gallery in Bairnsdale and has participated in many group exhibitions in the same cities. He had an entry in the National Touring Print Exhibition in 1990-1992.
Now sort of retired, he lives on an old farm in Nungurner where he works in his garden, but also sits at a desk and either draws with pen and ink or paints with watercolours and often uses quills that he makes from pelican feathers he collects at the beach. He also uses acrylics, oils or coloured pencils and has done printmaking, calligraphy, and an animated film for television.
“In discussing his work today, and wondering where the ideas come from, he mentions nomadic tribes dancing across the landscape, and possible memories of war with refugees in the middle of winter, with families fleeing on horse drawn carts, and being overtaken by military vehicles,” gallery owner Elizabeth Blakeman said.
“He also mentions places he might have visited or those seen repeatedly in dreams, and the heritage of a childhood spent at a time of war, in ‘an environment of destruction, alienation, fear and embarrassment’.
“This is all powerful imagery for an artist to be drawing upon, so it is good to know that he draws on exciting and joyful images as well.
“This is an exhibition worth seeing,” Elizabeth said.
IMAGE: Joachim Kruse, better known as Jochen, will display his exhibition titled Down the Road and Up the Hill at Lemon Hill Gallery at Wairewa from Sunday, June 9 for four weeks. (PS)
