Hubert Scheibl “Phoksundo” 2003/4

In “Phoksundo”, the well-travelled Austrian painter Hubert Scheibl processes his impressions of a journey to Nepal. The painting is named after a mountain lake in the region of Dolpo at the foot of the Himalayan massif.
With a striking division into a darker upper and brighter lower part in red, Scheibl perhaps refers to an impressive sunrise or sunset on the lake. The dichotomy manifests itself not only in terms of color. The two fields also differ from each other in the way the paint has been applied. The colorful lower section, with its impasto layers, clearly stands in contrast to the smudged upper section, where the underlaying colors shimmer through the smoothed, dark cover paint very delicately.
Hubert Scheibl’s signature painting technique can be easily understood from this representative vertical format. In a time-consuming process, which, as here, can extend over a period of almost two years, the artist applies countless layers of paint onto the canvas. In a final creative act, he then uses various utensils, such as wide spatulas, to uncover and disclose these layers again, thus creating an optical illusion space full of atmosphere.