German artist Philipp Donald Gobel's early works primarily focused on painting. However, as he discovered that the pure context of painting was no longer sufficient to express himself, he adopted a completely new approach. In the process of "deconstructing" and "reconstructing" old works, he aimed to create expressions beyond the confines of the canvas. The artwork "Untitled," created in 2012, is an example of Gobel's transformation. Using techniques such as tearing, destroying, and binding, he sculpted the two-dimensional canvas into a three-dimensional space. This series of changes resembles the metamorphosis of a butterfly, and the artwork was ultimately completed in 2021, offering a new artistic perspective by deconstructing traditional aesthetics.
In the final three pieces of the "Skeletons" series that Philipp Donald Gobel began creating in 2004, along with three earlier paintings, he employed a technique of cutting and even leaping forcefully onto the canvas until it ruptured. He then reconfigured the form of the canvas, resulting in the creation of a completely new "Untitled" piece in 2021. The overlapping canvases in this work mirror Gobel's reexamination of himself, demonstrating the courage to break through constraints and challenges. In the constant struggle between his body and the canvas, Gobel opens up a new dialogue mode between the artist and the viewer.
