As the title of the show suggests, the focus here is on the alchemical aspect of art. This could perhaps be described as a recharging action, by which lifeless, inconspicuous material is reborn as something precious, fascinating, powerful and unique, and this element then remains purposely perceptible in the work. Perhaps to provoke wonder, a moment to stop and take up the scent that brings the viewer into active dialogue with the work and its aura.

The exhibition ‘TRANSFORMATIONS: MATERIAL AND DISSOLUTION’ brings together works of 11 international artists in which the transformation of materials plays a role, often a fundamental one. Here we encounter matter in the form of: dust, wax, paper, nylon, epoxy, glass, mirrored glass, silver, ink, graphite and plaster.

Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) a major protagonist of the post-war avant-garde, Beuys is undisputedly among the most influential artists, whose understanding of material (also in the alchemical sense) went as far as the use of his own body. Here we present 6 very quiet, gentle frottage drawings that were made in the 50s in connection with his zinc relief „Vor der Geburt“ (Before the Birth).

The three-dimensional works of Japanese painter Rikako Kawauchi (*1990, lives in Tokyo) are made of flesh-colored serpentine structures cast in resin. They evoke organic entities that despite their utter abstraction exude an extreme realism.

Artist Wolfgang Flad (*1974, lives in Berlin) is represented with pieces from various work groups: abstract aluminum reliefs with a stark interplay between the shiny polished surface and the rough, pockmarked texture of the craters that blemish it to various degrees; colorful, reflective wall pieces from his ‘Dark Side of the Moon‘ cycle; and the latest works, large-format abstract tableaus with an uneven, sandy surface made of dust and sawdust collected from the floor of the artist’s studio, color-enhanced and transformed.

From a photographic template transferred in painting onto a collection of numerous thin, taught nylon threads, densely spaced yet offsetting each other, artist Robert Currie (*1976, lives in London) creates three-dimensional wall pieces that are visually extremely suggestive while appearing almost immaterial at the same time. His abstract works, on the other hand, evoke shadowy black mirrors.

Elger Esser (*1967, lives in Düsseldorf) here shows two small-format nightscapes, in which the black silhouettes of treetops are seen in the moonlight, outlined against the night sky. The special technique of direct pigment printing on silver-plated copper plates palpably communicates the magical atmosphere, as the eye roams the scene of darkest night, seeking orientation and a sense of space in the few light sources to be found.

The black and white photographs of Pierre Faure (*1965, lives in Paris) have a surprising extreme-yet- subtle alienation effect: with a flipped perspective, a skillfully chosen image edit and reduction of visual information down to purely geometric structures the perception of scaffolding is completely redefined.

Using more or less sharp objects, Fernando de Brito (*1956, lives in Hamburg), carves through the layers of oil and tempera built up on the MDF “canvas” to create paintings that are a mesh of lines. The principal of oscillation between clearly spaced straight vertical lines and freehand, dynamic horizontal lines seems to make each composition pulsate and allows it to breath.

Dutch artist Bas de Wit (*1977, lives in Maastricht) transforms casts of old art-historical sculptures, out of which he makes new, more rough-hewn castings, which he in turn then casts with colored layers of resin. This process leaves much room for deformation, by accident or design, resulting in newly created sculptures that are but a vague reminiscence of the original historical model, from which they have liberated themselves in stages, to assert their own existence in the end.

Wax, a flexible, user-friendly material, has been deployed widely throughout art history in the area of applied arts and for maquettes of planned sculptures. Rebecca Stevenson (*1971, lives in London), in contrast to the hyperrealism of the 60s or 90s, uses wax to sculpturally paraphrase the depiction of reality found in her poetic-macabre allegories.

The always intensely colorful figurative scenarios in the paintings of Lorenzo Pompa (*1962, lives in Düsseldorf) are joined at regular intervals, as if in an ongoing dialogue, by black-silver abstract works in which the oil paint is constrained in minimalistic gesture that depending on the size can become an almost unlimited textural field. This show presents the latest of these paintings.

Michael Wittassek (*1958, lives near Cologne), for his part, works mainly in the form of installation with sculptures of folded, crumpled sheets of exposed photographic paper. Here, however, we are showing mid-sized black, mirrored objects with a reflective convex surface that seems to suck in the surrounding space and even the viewers themselves.

We would like to thank the participating artists for their generous constructive input.

Throughout the ages, “modernity” has always triggered wide-ranging debate. One issue, however, remains fundamental: what is, in fact, the picture, and what is the artist? In an early phase of the Modern Art era, when symbolism was on the ascent, the prevailing thought was that the subject of a painting, as in poetry, should be the very essence of things, of the world, should be a likeness thereof. The value and significance of the thing was felt to lie in its unforgettability, its aura, its ability to make sentiments visible, all of which then convenes in the imagination of the viewer to produce something that can be grasped mentally and can also transcend its own physical nature. Not just an object, no: a similitude.

This type of idealism provoked a dialectical response from the realists, who explicitly favored paintings that were less likeness, allegory or idea and more object. Realists are interested in the thing and not its essential nature.

Even in the fragmented realm of cubism or in wholly abstract painting, the works were still seen as solid entities in a world of things. A dilemma for 20^th century art became apparent. In the past it was a given that comparability provided the fundamental basis for the reception/perception of art. But to the same degree as recognition proceeded to depart from the level of pure comparability, painting found itself forced to embrace the elements of memory and sensitivity. A few brushstrokes and voilà: a bundle of asparagus. Not “real” asparagus, rather an analogy thereof. A direct result of increasing freedom, but also in times when paintings become just one among very many things, is that the fundamental system of analogies is also increasingly called into question. And that, in turn, provokes viewers’ desire for restoration, purification or readjustment. Like a pendulum swinging to the other extreme. All remain trapped in this paradox.

The four painters presented in the current group show “Vor und hinter den Figuren” (Before and Behind the Figures) were carefully curated to create an exhibition that is a dialogue between various outposts within the broad field of  “genuine” painting – that is, an expression of the real, immediate personal emotions/perceptions of the artist. They each take what appears to be a clear position within the historical progression described here, each having developed a unique individual language to express it. It follows that these artistic standpoints take figurative painting seriously as painting first and foremost. Not only in terms of the wide-ranging formal options it offers for creative expression, but also in its challenging preconditions, which are constantly being reconsidered.

The alliance with Philip Guston, arguably the progenitor of this forthright type of “genuine” painting, is perhaps most apparent here in the work of Lorenzo Pompa. His figures are primary yet complex elements with a streamlined corporal appearance that nonetheless strongly conveys human emotions.

Elements typical of Guston also appear in the painting of Roy Mordechay: segmentation and fragmentation of body parts and a harkening back to painterly discoveries of bygone eras – in the case of Mordechay to ancient Judea, et al. Frans Roermond’s painting is perhaps the most enigmatic, strangely timeless in its constant interspersion of figurative and abstract. The work of Matthias Röhrborn displays most powerfully the collision of mastery of the medium and subversive disruption.

Despite all the differences, each of them is ultimately concerned with the depiction of human beings, whether as a figurative form, or behind one, with ourselves in the foreground or absent.

Painting, it seems, just can’t stop after all, and it also can’t just stop.

Lorenzo Pompa (*1962) grew up in Rome where he first studied interior design and architecture before moving to Germany, later studying painting with Georg Herold at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1996 – 2003. He lives and works in Düsseldorf.

Frans Roermond (*1967) studied painting in London, Berlin and New York, which since 2017, after long periods abroad, has once again been his home and work base.

Matthias Röhrborn (*1968) studied at the Udk Berlin from 1989 – 1996. He lives and works in Berlin and Brandenburg. 

Roy Mordechay (*1976) was born in Haifa and studied at the Avni Institut of Art and Design in Tel Aviv from 1999 – 2002. He is currently based in Düsseldorf.