Magnus Plessen is known for pushing beyond the traditional parameters of representation employing multiple perspectives to suggest the free circulation of objects, not dictated by compositional rules or gravity.

Against this background “The Skin of Volume” – now on view at White Cube, London  – features paintings made over the past two years in a continuation of the artist’s “1914” series of work that further explores its themes.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE “The Skin of Volume” Magnus Pessen, through 14 January, at White Cube Masons Yard, London whitecube.com

The “1914” paintings are inspired by German pacifist Ernst Friedrich’s seminal anti-war book War Against War (1924). The first published work to show the devastating impact of automatic weapons on the human body, War Against War presents photographs of mutilated and wounded soldiers from World War I.

In Plessen’s works, limbs, heads and objects appear radically dislocated from their context as is the case with the work Untitled (smoking) (2015), where a dark head simultaneously emerges from and recedes into the painting’s background. Devoid of features, the head is partially obscured by, and seemingly disconnected from, the limp grey hand that languidly holds a cigarette, as if these parts are held together not by the rules of physical form but by the necessity of the composition.

Using oil and charcoal on canvas, the two dimensionality of the paintings is accentuated by condensing perspectives and obfuscating spatial relationships, as if the composition has been flattened under the pressure of weight. Figures and objects float against the dominant background of dark wood floor boards, presented vertically, as if the floor has tipped-up and our notion of ground has been dislodged.

The introduction of a pregnant female nude in these works, alluding to the pregnancy of his own wife with their fourth child, anchors the paintings in a life cycle. The theme of pregnancy and the subject of the pregnant nude also speaks of form and physicality, what Plessen describes as ‘the skin of volume’, which is the title of the exhibition.

The depiction of the swelling belly can be seen as an analogy to physical volume within the composition, whereby tension is created by the exaggerated and compressed space of the picture plane. Like a skin stretched taut, the paint is almost transparent in parts revealing the blank canvas beneath.

By orientating works in different ways – landscape versus portrait –  Plessen introduces new dynamics and a new kind of abstraction which destabilises the relationships of object and subject, painting and viewer.

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