Jost Kirsten’s work investigates diverse forms of abstraction and repetition in art. In his installative presentations of work he brings together simple sculptures reminiscent of Concept Art or Minimal Art, which are often made of natural materials and enter into creative dialogue with their direct environment.

Kirsten’s preferred material is wood, which he sometimes combines experimentally with stone. Fire is one element without which Jost Kirsten’s artistic oeuvre would seem incomplete. On the one hand, the artist makes it into a ‘tool’ with which he processes wood, paper, canvas or stone in a methodical way; on the other hand, it becomes an ephemeral artistic medium in itself, and its repetitive traces are left behind on the carrying media in patterns of smoke or soot or ‘captured’ between two panes of glass by the artist.

In his home country Namibia, Jost Kirsten prefers to use working materials customary in that country, such as the dolf wood from the local mukwa tree, or if the wood is rare – as is quite often the case in this country dominated by deserts – he makes use of abandoned cable drums or old wooden cases into which he drills thousands of small holes. The light shines through these to the viewer as an ornamental pattern, and he works on the wood methodically using candles, a gas burner or cooker hotplates.

At Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Jost Kirsten is showing a selection from his latest works, which were produced during his twelve-month residence in Berlin.