Donald Schenkel

More about the artist

Rooted in a deep engagement with the material qualities of oil paint, Donald’s practice has evolved toward a more open and physical approach. Donald works with self-developed tools that allow him to guide and disrupt the paint in equal measure, embracing irregularities, allowing surfaces to breathe, and inviting chance into the process. Earlier works often explored subtle colour gradients; more recent pieces introduce rougher transitions, exposed structures and tonal shifts that evoke a sense of movement and impermanence.

Donald works across a variety of supports, including wood, canvas, aluminium and glass. Each material brings its own logic and resistance. Rather than hiding these, Donald allows the raw textures, grains, seams, and natural imperfections, to remain visible. Light becomes an essential element: it reflects, filters and refracts across the surfaces, deepening the viewer’s experience of time and space within the work.

His paintings, sculptures and large-scale installations emerge from an ongoing investigation into how perception is shaped. While his visual language remains abstract, it resonates with familiar sensations, stillness, depth, reflection. Donald Schenkel’s work can be found in private collections across Europe, the United States and Asia.