To understand the paintings of Christopher Kadetzki, one needs neither a degree nor a deeper understanding of art. The connection to his work comes from a feeling. I still remember very clearly one of the first meetings with him. On a warm summer night, we sat together by the Spree. Except for the distant laughter of scattered groups of people and the windy, often disjointed silence of the evening atmosphere in Berlin, we heard only the atmospheric jazz music that a mutual friend, immersed in his book, was playing. The yellowish lights of the lanterns danced on the unfathomable black of the water and in the distance an old bridge glowed, bathing the emptiness of the night in a warm atmosphere. Christopher sat in front of his small canvas as always, listening to the music as he skilfully mixed the colours and let the feeling I was carrying that evening flow onto the canvas in sweeping movements. There was hardly any talking that evening. We all felt the same. The vibrating calm of the city at night. The rustling of the wind in the leaves of the big trees. The atmospheric light of the old street lamps. We can still recognise all this in that work today. The feeling still vibrates between the colour nuances of the painted scenery. Christopher is a quiet man who recognises and appreciates nature and peo- ple in all their colourful and emotional variations. But what is really special about his painting is the empathetic dimension of the artworks. There is a feeling in all of his art. It makes no difference which motif he chooses for the next painting. Be it a fallen tree in the autumnal Schlaubetal, the interior of a Berlin nightclub, craftsmen at work or a skate park. His artworks are not about technical perfection or the realistic artistic reproduction of a meticulously selected motif. It is about the depiction of human emotions, experiences and encounters. It is about a feeling. In the course of this artistic process, Christopher manages to authentically document a wide variety of subcultures on the spot, as they happen, in oil. Capturing the conversations, stories and emotions of the people in his work. Skateboarding in Oil deals with the stories and experiences from the skate scene and sheds light on all the people who, apart from any “hype”, have promoted this exciting culture and made it what it is today. Because just like Christopher’s artworks, skating is also about a feeling. Skateboarding in Oil deals with an important year in Christopher Kadetzki’s life. The first trip to Copenhagen, meeting Nicky Guerrero, the Copenhagen Opens 2021 and the many experiences and encounters have had a lasting impact not only on his paintings but also on the artist’s life, his ideas and his possibilities for the future. A special focus that runs like a thread through the artist’s life is on the artisanal aspects of skate culture, which are often forgotten, pushed aside by trends, but are the indispensable foundation of this subculture. Without the almost artistic skills of ramp builders, carpenters and board builders, the culture and the currently ongoing “hype” could not exist. In this sense, the works in the exhibition can also be understood as a tribute to the craft and all the talented personalities who have accompanied the artist over the past year and who, in the background, make the successes of this vibrant subculture possible in the first place. Most works within this publication were created over the last year during the painter’s travels to Europe’s most famous skate spots and in collaboration with a wide range of greats from the skate scene, such as Nicky Guerrero. These include Berlin Banks, Hullet Copenhagen and the Malmö Train Bank spot, which find their appreciation on a handmade and unique series of decks in collaboration with Grzegorz Filewicz, founder of Berlin Boards Brewery.
