Emil Michael Klein
Manor Art Prize Basel
Emil Michael Klein (b. 1982) makes drawings, prints and paintings. His drawings, a cross between collage and abstract watercolours, are reworked with ink, lacquer and felt pens.
Originally trained as a traditional wood carver, the artist makes his frames and supports by hand, thereby addressing the question of the classical framed picture and the expanded field of painting. He extends the two dimensionality of his works through a combination of superimposed layers, surfaces and transparency, creating objects characterized by a distinct idiom of their own. Klein’s interest in the border area between picture and object comes to the fore in his latest work, his so-called abstract “behind glass painting”. His work unites classical craftsmanship with modernist and formalist developments.
