Outline

In Outline, Emil Michael Klein’s second solo exhibition at Ilenia, the artist presents a new series of paintings, a curtain and a monotype, that synthesize his practice to four essential
elements: line, colour, surface, and form.

Coming to abstraction from a background in folk art, sculpture and graffiti, Klein’s work has long been rooted in repetition, process, and instinct. After more than two decades of making,
this body of work reflects a distilled understanding of what continues to drive his practice. As Klein says, “I’m realizing that it’s mostly about process and movement”. In Outline, that
realization becomes both subject and method. The line paintings operate as maps of motion, tracing space and time across the canvas.

Klein’s lines loop, drift, and gather across the picture plane, emerging from the background as new layers of colour are constantly added and removed from the surface. By doing so, the
works create shifting spatial relationships that feel at once instinctive and deeply intentional.