Drawing is the art of reduction. The targeted abstraction of the visual excesses of reality. At first sight, the work of Dennis Scholl seems to contest such assertions. In his monochrome drawings, which vary from small size to nearly monumental 280 x 200 cm, Scholl confronts the observer with an “unsettling” delight in detail. His collage-like, hyper-real images seem anything but reduced, as one work can bring together objects which seem to have nothing in common but the pictorial space itself. He creates images which draw their strength out of the inconsistent, the contingent and the secluded. Like emblems or icons, they allow the observer to discern a possible meaning beyond the confusion they provoke at first sight. But they reject a complete iconographic solution that would degrade the images to mere illustrations; rather, they draw the observer into a confusing game with wildly varying reference systems.