David Linneweh | Compositional Camouflage

Configuration (Rockford) © David Linneweh 2013 •

Above A long-time friend, Joseph Podlesnik (artist, photographer, filmmaker, teacher), recently introduced me to the work of artist David Linneweh. I was especially struck by this particular painting, titled Configuration (Rockford), 24 x 36 in., oil and graphite on panel (2013). It is so very exactly composed and beautifully executed. It's just also very smart in the ways in which it taunts us with suggested (yet withheld) connections. In every inch of its surface, one encounters an on-going battle between flat graphic abstraction and the illusion of three-dimensional form. This is not cubism, but it has much in common with that, as it does with World War I ship camouflage.

In looking at this painting, I am reminded of Wylie Sypher's account (see Rococco to Cubism in Art and Literature) of the constructive-destructive strategies of the cubist designers and painters. These include (as Sypher wrote)—

…a breaking of contours, the passage, so that form merges with the space about it or with other forms, planes or tones that bleed into other planes and tones; outlines that coincide with other outlines, then suddenly reappear in new relations; surfaces that simultaneously recede and advance in relation to other surfaces; parts of objects shifted away, displaced, or changed in tone until forms disappear behind themselves.

Linneweh teaches at the College of Dupage (Glen Ellyn IL), and the College of Lake County (Grayslake IL). He appears to be prolific, as judged by his website, online portfolio, and an interesting series of podcasts called Studio Break. His efforts are well-deserving of an extended, serious look.

• Reproduced by permission of the artist.