Complex, Obsessive Abstracts by Leif Timber
Freedom of Violence, oil on canvas
Today’s featured artist is Leif Timber. Leif is a painter who specializes in complex, obsessive abstracts.
Leif’s paintings use varied splashes of colour and texture, sometimes combining to form figures, frequently of women, and other times remaining utterly abstract. The element of obsession that runs through Leif’s body of work presents itself in a number of ways – whether through the repetition of similar nude figures of the complex layering of different paints and colours.
Leif often works from a figurative image to start with, even if the final piece is entirely abstract. I find the artist’s “Meditations,” part of his Exodus series, quite interesting. These are some of Leif’s only works in which the artist utilizes negative space, creating images of orchids that seem to reference classical Chinese watercolour stylings while still presenting themselves in Leif’s unique style. These are formally similar to the works of our other artists who combine frenetic brush strokes with negative space.