Kurt Schranzer - The Great Walls

THE GREAT WALLS
Artworks from the exhibition 16 April — 19 June 2011
Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest, Emu Plains, NSW

An exhibition of 12 artworks: wood veneered panels and 3-dimensional objects.
Exhibition essay No Man is an Island: Reflections on 'The Great Walls' by Kurt Schranzer. >>
View an album of works in progress. >>

… When I say Kurt Schranzer is a perfectionist, you can believe it. After all, it takes one to know one. Of course, being a perfectionist doesn’t mean you are perfect. It just means you aim unfeasibly high and try bloody hard. Schranzer is also obsessive, meticulous and highly skilled. He is known for his achingly accurate line drawings, so clean and steady it is hard to believe that they are done by hand and not by some mechanism calibrated for precision. … In The Great Walls, Schranzer has used his considerable tenacity and skill to create intricately inlaid wooden wall pieces. The works in this solo show may not be perfect (almost nothing really is), but technically at least, they come frighteningly close.

… Schranzer collaborated with his Father, a master cabinet maker… and many of the works read like a kind of sampler of traditional patterns and technical optical illusions: wood seems to have been woven, flat surfaces become spinning stars or steps receding into 3D space. But, the strongest pieces have complex layers of meaning added to the thick base of craft prowess. …
Extracted from Tracey Clement, ‘Kurt Schranzer: The Great Walls’, The Post Post, May 22, 2011