The small-sized drawings of Ulrich Kochinke work as a simplified combination of text and image. On a white surface geometrical composition that consists of just a few lines are corresponding with words done in letter templates with a drawing pen.

Though there is no obvious reference to Asian art, the works of Kochinke are showing parallels to the Haiga.

The Haiga is a Japanese art genre combing the short poem Haiku with ink drawing.

Text and image are juxtaposed in Kochinke's drawings and create a unique unity; nevertheless each part keeps its significant character.

As in the Japanese Haiga the drawing is by no means an illustration of the Haiku and vice versa, the two elements in Kochinke’s work coexist with their individual esthetic.

The artist collects fragments of ordinary life, phrases he picks up in books, magazines or on the streets, and then he works with them.

He condenses them and gives them a strange poetic quality, where no word is redundant. Just as in the exhibitions’ title “the cherry tree in front of the butcher shop is blossoming”.

Next to these words and phrases he puts geometrical or architectural constructions meaning of which is not openly evident to the viewer, but is encouraging him to find his own individual reading of these inspiring text – image encounters.

Ulrich Kochinke, born in 1972 in Gronau/Westphalen, lives and works in Berlin.