EDWARD LENTSCH is an internationally-recognized artist. His refined finishes and singular style have him in high demand with many of today’s most distinguished designers, collectors and fine art dealers. Lentsch’s work is in hundreds of private and public collections worldwide.

Lentsch’s monumental sized works exhibit unique surfaces and refined textures while also reflecting a contemplative element of alchemy and spiritual introspection. The Spiritual overtones of Lentsch’s painting are captured by his titles, where he uses mystical images and esoteric subjects to inspire the imagination of his viewer.

Lentsch’s expansive artistic practice explores his relationship between the self, nature and the universe. From the Fibonacci sequence to the teachings of Aristotle, Lentsch attempts to create a bridge between the natural world and these intellectual canons, exploring the interconnection between the realms of science and mysticism, the metaphysical and the spiritual.

"Edward Lentsch’s expansive artistic practice explores his relationship
between the self, nature and the universe. From the Fibonacci sequence to
the teachings of Aristotle, Lentsch attempts to create a bridge between the
natural world and these intellectual canons, exploring the interconnection
between the realms of science and mysticism, the metaphysical and the
spiritual. He explores how these three facets are integrated within a global
environment and moreover how we, as humans, fit within this complex matrix
of thought using the ideas of some of the world’s greatest writers and
scholars.

Lentsch works across a variety of media to create an ‘energy of intention’, in
which textures, compositions and colours (or their absence) are combined. At
first glance, his abstract canvases bring to mind the earthen tones of Kiefer, or
the scratched surfaces of Tàpies. Lentsch, however, draws from a broader art
historical canon, and painting becomes an extension of the life force around
him, a transformative experience through which he can mediate a pure
experiential moment. Flowing from a nonverbal intuitive state of creative
expression, Lentsch bridges a complex visual language in which colours and
textures are lifted from the natural world. On canvas, they are refracted and
tessellated, at times put through the process of entropy, which allows for them
to be transformed and transmuted.

Lentsch starts with a mastic and polymer foundation, before working with
stone powders and dry pigments. Here, while the work is still wet, he uses
trowels and sticks creating visual interventions. Before encapsulating the work
in shellac and various varnishes, each works’ effervescence is enhanced and
its distressed surface is developed. Works take on qualities of organic
surfaces, such as sandstone or granite, using an intricate network of flecks
and dots of pigment to proliferate the densely worked surface. One can
imagine soft, snowy landscapes of white and grey or the verdant green of a
tranquil overgrown pond or even the harsh dark lines of barren twigs and
brush against an autumn landscape. Lentsch’s technique allows for the
translation of our natural landscapes into abstract environments.
It is the complex relationship between what is known, or the skill and
technique, and what is manifested, the interpretation or intuition, that lies at
the heart of Lentsch’s painterly technique. He uses the force of the paint as it
is applied to the canvas as a sensory way to connect with the energy of the
life force around him. Lentsch’s paintings also use logic existing within nature;
for example, the number sequences that comprise the fractals of a snowflake.
This ontological approach is spurred by the artist’s interest in Synectics, a
methodology that seeks to explore how creativity works by a connecting of

dots to reach a higher plane of understanding that encompasses the physical,
psychological and symbolic. In this way Lentsch explores links between
elemental phenomena and more ethereal, spiritual and magical experiences.
Each of Lentsch’s works refers to a particular theory or intellectual or spiritual
manifesto. His titles are not intended to act as complete narratives for
individual paintings, but rather to demonstrate their significance as a
theoretical foundation where each piece is connected to the other. His work
becomes a series of links within a chain creating an intuitive dialogue between
the conscious and subconscious. Just as his paintings make connections
between the natural world and abstraction, it is the force of painting that helps
him complete the circle. In diving into the canvas Lentsch understands his
connection to the beauty and complexity of life that allow him to find freedom
and personal empowerment."

LONDON 2014
WRITTEN BY ANNA WALLACE-THOMPSON
GALLERIE KASHYA HILDEBRAND
22 Eastcastle Street, London W1W 8DE, United Kingdom