Color Is the Carrier of Emotion
[by John Yau, Hyperallergic, March 24, 2019]
Although it is very early in Jule Korneffel’s career, she has moved into a territory where color and materiality outweigh discursive content.
I first saw Jule Korneffel’s abstract paintings in the Hunter MFA thesis show in May of 2018. During our conversation I learned that she had previously studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where she worked closely with Tal R. The other artist we talked about was Mary Heilmann and her uncomplicated, seemingly free, laid-back approach. It was clear from the work Korneffel had in the thesis show that she had gotten a lot from these artists and – more importantly – that she was starting to pursue her own path.
My curiosity about where Korneffel was going led me to check out her debut exhibition, Jule Korneffel: here comes trouble, at Spencer Brownstone Gallery (March 6 – April 21, 2019), which opened less than a year after she graduated from Hunter. The biggest difference between the works I saw in her thesis show and the ones in this exhibition was that she has further simplified her compositions. All of them have a loosely brushed monochrome ground, on which Korneffel has painted three or more circular shapes.