K. T. Kobel: Hand, Body, Object, Sin

Kutlesa is pleased to present Hand, Body, Object, Sin, a solo exhibition by K. T. Kobel, bringing together a new body of paintings developed around a conceptual framework the artist has been circling for some time. The exhibition proposes a way of breaking the image apart, resisting the impulse to make it hold everything at once, and instead allowing meaning to emerge through fragmentation, implication, and moral residue.

The terms that shape the exhibition are understood in deliberately direct ways: the hand as a site of agency, the object as residue, the body as consequence, and sin as a moral atmosphere rather than a religious condition. In Kobel’s work, these elements do not operate symbolically or narratively, but function as structural anchors through which the image is dispersed.

Each work in the exhibition is a vertically oriented painting composed of stacked scenes. Rather than unfolding a linear sequence or depicting a clearly defined action, the paintings originate from implied incidents—events that are sensed rather than shown. Gestures, objects, and bodies appear as traces, carrying the weight of something that has occurred without ever resolving into a single moment. The emphasis lies on how things linger, and how consequence is distributed across fragments rather than contained within a unified image.

This approach reflects Kobel’s sustained engagement with cinema, archival imagery, and moving-image practice, as well as an affinity with photographic logic. Echoing Roland Barthes’ observation that the photographic trace does not simply recall memory but interrupts it, the works resist coherent storytelling. Images function as interruptions—partial, unresolved, and suspended—leaving behind fragments that refuse narrative closure.

In Hand, Body, Object, Sin, absence becomes an active force. By withholding explicit depiction and resolution, Kobel’s paintings hold onto the sense that something has happened without ever fully revealing it. Meaning is generated through implication and delay, inviting viewers into a space where visual tension replaces explanation, and resonance takes precedence over certainty.