second glances // opening // 22.07.2016 - 30.08.2016

Second Glances
The five artists in ‘Second Glances’ each approach the figurative in art with a unique vision. What they share is a fascination with popular culture; with taking the plethora of imagery and narratives produced by the mass media – often starting with source material that is either printed or photographic – and through the processes of painting and drawing discovering a way of exploring deeply personal concerns, thus creating a sense of purpose and identity from the everyday and things that are often considered ephemeral or are easily ignored. Often it takes a second reading – or glance – to more fully begin to understand the artists’ intentions.
Michael Davies’ paintings and drawings are wry meditations on desire and mortality, their sources ranging from the artist’s own and family snapshots to anonymous, found images. His depictions of people engaged in seemingly inconsequential activity, mundane street scenes and institutional and domestic interiors on closer inspection reveal a search for the transcendent; every object, situation and denizen becoming an ominous herald of the unknown. Davies was born in Stone, UK, in 1967, and lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Nick Fox transforms the found taboo image and context into one of intimacy and emotive experience; creating tantalising idylls and elusive narratives of an Eden after the fall where innocence has been banished. In his series of delicately observed figurative pencil drawings he transforms found images from pornography into ones of intimate and emotive experience in which languorous male figures emerge from the surface of the paper. Fox was born in Durban, South Africa, in 1972, and lives in London and Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Stephen Palmer transcribes the ephemera of everyday life – from second-hand records to newspaper clippings (often obituaries or reports of a noted individual’s death) – into paint and pencil with exquisite precision. His coolly analytical approach belies a longing to create an order from the chaos of the mundane, as well as a wistful nostalgia for the simpler pleasures of his youth. This process of transcription – reproducing faithfully every nuance, every discolouration, crease or tear in the original – confers a sense of importance, value and permanence to objects and events that would otherwise be seen as the refuse of our disposable culture. Palmer was born in Alton, UK, in 1967, and lives in London, UK.
Narbi Price is interested in perceived histories of locations and how painting can question the understanding of architectural and pictorial space. He challenges the conventions of photographically derived painting in terms of paint application and composition, and in blurring the line between the figurative and the abstract. His paintings are derived from photographs taken on trips to places that have witnessed a range of events, whether from significant moments in music, film and TV, or from whimsical acts through to brutal murders and tragic deaths, all of which have spawned folklore. Price was born in Hartlepool, UK, in 1979, and lives in Gateshead, UK.
Flora Whiteley’s oil paintings, watercolours and drawings explore how objects in space create a form of open ‘abstract’ dialogue with each other and the audience. She creates filmic and stage-like spaces from layers of source material; combining personal artefacts with found images: holiday snaps, film stills, newspaper cuttings, and art history books, to create enigmatic, suggestive scenes. Using a collage aesthetic, Whiteley creates ‘quiet moments between the action’, where empty rooms and figures in ambiguous activity slowed to the moment before standstill. Whitely was born in Oxford, UK, in 1977, and lives in Berlin, Germany.
‘Second Glances’ has been curated by Vane gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Vane is a curatorially led organisation based in Newcastle. The gallery exhibition programme is focused on the work of a group of emerging critically engaged artists from the North East of England, across the UK, Europe and the USA. The gallery also shows the work of invited guest artists in collaboration with other regional, national, and international galleries as well as festivals and projects by guest curators. Between 1997 and 2003 Vane was a project-based organisation with no permanent building. Since 2005 Vane has operated a permanent gallery space and has participated in international art fairs in the UK, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, Switzerland, and the USA.
In 2011, Vane relocated to its current base and used this larger space as a platform to launch an enhanced programme, one strand of which is focused on assisting the realisation of exhibitions curated by artists. Another part of the premises has been developed as a residency studio for artists. The gallery Directors are Paul Stone and Christopher Yeats. Vane is supported by Arts Council England. www.vane.org.uk

Gilbert Brohl „HOPE“, Malerei vom 16.04.2016 – 14.04.2016

In seiner aktuellen Ausstellung mit dem Titel „HOPE“, präsentiert der Künstler Gilbert Brohl seine neuen Ölgemälde und verwendet nun auch Zeichnungen als Medium seiner Fantasie. Seine Werke entführen den Betrachter in eine magische Welt, in der die Mystik vorherrscht und sich gleichzeitig vertraute Parallelen unserer Realität entdecken lassen. Streifzüge und Erkundigungen durch Raum und Zeit, Erinnerungen und Hoffnungen an die Zukunft bestimmen seine vorherrschende Auseinandersetzung und führen uns hin und weg von der Einzelperson zu unserer Lebensweise.
Fantastische Szenerien bettet der Künstler in detaillierte Naturdarstellungen und verbindet diese mit graphischen Elementen. Durch den Kontrast aus statischer Grafik und lebendiger Natur erzeugt er eine fesselnde Spannung in den Bildern. Brohl thematisiert in seinen Werken das Zusammenleben von Mensch und Natur, beziehungsweise deren Symbiose. So zeigt er in der Zeichnung „Country side“ eine verbrauchte, vielleicht gar vergiftete Landschaft, in welcher im Hintergrund zwei in Strahlenanzügen gekleidete Personen agieren. Rein stilistisch, wird diese Anspielung auf eine der größten anzunehmende Katastrophen sichtbar durch die geometrischen, farblich kontrastierten Elemente.


Company of fun  2016 Mischtechnik auf Papier 21cm x 28 cm

Michaela Helfrich Galerie
Herrfurthstraße 29 - 12049 Berlin - Neukölln
+49 30 62988990 / +49 179 3400341 

Öffnungszeiten:
Di. - Fr. 16 - 20 Uhr
Sa. 14 - 20 Uhr
Mo. Ruhetag 

© Sudhaus Kultur 2016 


Gerard Waskievitz / All bunnies can fly / Malerei / 23.01.2016 -14.02.2016


All bunnies can fly 2015 oil on canvas 200x220cm



23.01.2016 -14.02.2016 / Gerard Waskievitz / All bunnies can fly / Painting as MemoryThe Art of Gerard Waskievitz By Gerhard Charles Rump.


The paintings by Gerard Waskievitz seem to show scenes from everyday life. Situations everybody has witnessed, persons and their relations that seem strikingly familiar. Everybody has, in his life, stood before another person sitting in an easy chair, or encountered somebody frolicking at the beach. Still this is not quite correct in this case, and the more we look at his paintings, the deeper we delve into these images, the more we find that riddles are almost omnipresent, and that there are secrets behind every figure, and that the ultimate rationale behind this situation seems to be uncannily unfamiliar.

We know from forensics, philosophy, and other fields that nothing is what it seems. How could it be, then that it is any different in life in general? And, if it is not any different in life, it has to be the same also in art. Gerard Waskievitz explores the hidden dimensions governing the aristic world, caught between superficial reality and the necessary counterweight creation of a new, parallel world, which we are wont to perceive as art. This raises the question of the „how“, of the methods used in bringing forth this new world, this new visual experience. We gradually, step by step, with every little detail, begin to understand that it is Gerard Waskievitz’s brushwork in combination with his choice of colours that constitute the conditions for a completely new interpretation and innovative explanation of what we think characterises our lives.



Bunny 2016 Öl auf Leinwand 36×24,5 cm



This raises the existential questions of the why and wherefore – not only under the aspect of eternity but right under the aspect of the simple here and now: Why does the brush go this way here, and another way there? What does this depict, if it depicts anything at all? Are the contours of the object congruent with the contours of the discernible item on the canvas? Is the colour autonomous or dependent on preformed concepts? How far is the colour in its variations, its hues and layers, part of any object or part of the virtuosity of the painters brushwork?
It is indeed the brushwork itself which has all the answers we need. We do not look at the world, we look at a parallel world, a painted world, the world of art, with all its own laws and rules and regulations, processes and so forth. We cannot separate our visual experience from the recognition of what it is that we see. It is more than the commonly quoted „what you see is what you get“ – it is definitely „what you see is much more than you hoped for“. Explaining reality, explaining fantasy, explaining concepts and thoughts through the way they are presented, is, indeed, a very characteristic and revered aesthetic practice.

Ohne Titel 2016 Öl auf Leinwand und auf Holz 54,5×34,5 cm


It is, in a way, like writing poetry, only that this time the fabric is not made of words, but of colours, of brush strokes, of traces of movement on the canvas, whose surface is altered by the application of colour. Of course painting is orientated towards the surface, being two-dimensional. The third dimension is only a kind of sham, a system devised to fool the eye. Conceptually, no painting is ever a 3D work. But what supports, enhances, and complements it, is the materialness of the colour, the qualities of the painted surface, which change from smooth to rough and from ragged to flowing, from the crumbly to the compact.These qualities are meant to interact with the beholder’s eye, slowing it down in its course, or accelerating it, contributing to an aesthetic dynamic, which also becomes an integral characteristic of the artwork.
Der Sitzende 2016 Öl auf Leinwand 160×118 cm

So looking at a work, a painting by Gerard Waskievitz, enriches our experience of the world, as it confronts us with the recognition of the way we see and perveive. And, lo and behold, we recognise that our ways of seeing images is in no way different from our ways of seeing the world.
In such a world of painterly aesthetics, what role does subject matter play? It runs parallel, with a lot of points and moments where the different systems touch and mutually explain each other. It is not that subject matter becomes aesthetics and the aesthetic is not the only subject matter, but they both are running parallel and form a kind of stereoscopic recognition of what’s going on.

Der Sessel (Manfredo) 2016 Öl auf Leinwand 160×100 cm

No matter whether an attitude is becoming form, or artistic form is generated by concocting seemingly contradictory statements of fact, of imagination, of poeticalness, a striking image always prevails in Gerard Waskievitz’s artistic production. We usually beam three different kinds of focus on anything we want to understand. It is the informational, the stylistic, and the aesthetic focus. The informational focus is dealing with the stories we are told, if we are told any story, which is not always the case, the stylistic focus deals with matters of style, which means that we look for characteristics distinguishing the work in question from others, like a poem from a news item in the paper, and lastly the aesthetic focus tells us everything we need to know about how something is made, thus providing a glimpse into the aesthetic cosmos and into the relations of the characteristics of production to any other system of lofty thoughts, like all kinds of historical, literary, and artistic references, quotations, and more of that kind. 



Dunkle Landschaft 2016 Öl auf Leinwand 33×36 cm

So a certain kind of painting, a certain method of applying paint to canvas, can constitute a historical reference, an invocation of the emotional and social and aesthetic preferences of a painter or even a whole era, which in this case then this would constitute a kind of reconstruction.
Understanding what kind of reconstruction is going on, is a longish process of repeated and intensive dialogue with the work.
In the philosophies of Eastern Europe we often find an attitude that says that a clear thought is a small thought and that a clear thought is a thought that hasn’t been thought through to its very end. Of course this indicates the fact that the more you know about a subject, the more questions arise, and it also indicates the growing critical complexity of things in this world, whether we encounter them in real life, in analysing the universe, or, as a matter of fact, in art.
In Gerard Waskievitz’s paintings, we walk through a wonderland world, which shows us that there are many, many hidden dimentions. We take a stroll down memory lane, but we are also, every now and then, touching a kind of foreboding, a sudden vision of hell or paradise, alarm bells ringing telling about changes to come.
The paintings will thankfully indicate the paths to follow in order to arrive at understanding main station, at recognition, but things don’t come easy. Why should they? It’s not written in any book. And this contributes to the fascination of Gerard Waskievitz’s art.



Translation by Mason Ellis Murray

Michaela Helfrich Galerie
Herrfurthstraße 29 - 12049 Berlin - Neukölln
+49 30 62988990 / +49 179 3400341 

Öffnungszeiten:
Di. - Fr. 16 - 20 Uhr
Sa. 14 - 20 Uhr
Mo. Ruhetag 




© Sudhaus Kultur 2016 


Sisters before misters - Malerei Pina Rath 5.12.2015 – 16.01.2016

´sisters before misters` beginnt mit dem Ende einer Geschichte. Das Modell der romantischen Paarbeziehung zwischen Mann und Frau ist hier gescheitert. Wir treffen die vermeintlich ´Übriggebliebenen` vereint in einer rätselhaften Sphäre aus Sehnsucht, Sex und Sisterhood. 

The Jury
Mixed Media on canvas
175x175 cm, 2015


Die Künstlerin lässt in ihren Bildern die männlichen Protagonisten, als das Unerreichbare, bewusst nicht vorkommen. Wenn man erkennt, dass sie offensichtlich nicht fehlen, wird deutlich, dass diese exklusive Sisterhood sich selbst genügt.
Pina Rath malt vorwiegend großformatige Close-ups in Öl auf Leinwand. Perspektivische Verortungen im Raum treten vor dem unmittelbaren Ausdruck ihrer Figuren zurück.
Im Entstehungsprozess wird die angestrebte Schönheit durch schroffe Pinselstriche gestört. So entsteht, durch unbewusste Impulse, eine neue Dimension im Ausdruck, der über das rein Schöne hinausgeht.

Badlands
oil on canvas
120x160 cm, 2015


´sisters before misters` starts where the story ends. The model of the romantic partnership between man and woman has failed here. We meet the purported ´left overs`, united in a mysterious sphere of yearning, sex and sisterhood.
The artist consciously leaves the male protagonists, as the unattainable, out of her paintings. When one realizes that they are not obviously missing, it becomes clear that this exclusive sisterhood is sufficient unto itself.
Pina Rath mainly paints large format close-ups in oil on canvas. Perspective localisations are secondary to immediate expression of her figurines. in the working process, the sought out beauty is being disturbed by harsh brushstrokes. Thus, through unconscious impulses, a new dimension of expression emerges that goes further than sheer beauty.

Rausch und Wirkung
Oil on canvas
180 x 100 cm, 2015


Michaela Helfrich Galerie
Herrfurthstraße 29 - 12049 Berlin - Neukölln
+49 30 62988990 / +49 179 3400341 

Öffnungszeiten:
Di. - Fr. 16 - 20 Uhr
Sa. 14 - 20 Uhr
Mo. Ruhetag 




Horst Kistner "Les mémoires intimes" 26.07 - 25.08.2015

1969 in Würzburg geboren, lernte den Beruf eines Fotografen an der 1866 gegründeten Berufsfachschule Lette-Verein in Berlin. Danach arbeitete er 22 Jahre als Food und Werbefotograf für Verlage wie GU, Bertelsmann und Time Life in London.
2010 beendete er die Karriere als Auftragsfotograf und widmet sich seinen Leidenschaften.

Almost nine  2015

Er sammelt Oldtimer und Vintage Möbel. 2013 baute er die erste Installation aus gesammelten Möbeln und fotografiert in ihr ein Model.
Im gleichen Jahr hatte er die erste Ausstellung in Paris.

Kistner ist die Ausnahmeerscheinung der deutschen Fotokunst, ein Lichtbildner alter Schule.
Das Hell-Dunkel seiner Kompositionen hat einen engen Bezug zur klassischen Malerei.
An Caravaggio und Rembrandt schult Horst Kistner sein Auge.

Finally-Divorced


Motivisch inspirieren ihn die amerikanischen Filme der 1950er Jahre und Alfred Hitchcock. Unübersehbar ist auch der Einfluss der Maler des amerikanischen Realismus, insbesondere der des nicht nur durch sein Bild „Nighthawks“ weltberühmt gewordenen Malers Edward Hopper.
Seine sinnlichen, oft auch melancholischen, Kompositionen sind einzigartige mit Licht gemalte Fotografien.

Horst Kistner lebt in Karlsruhe und hat ein reserviertes Zimmer in einem kleinen Pariser Hotel.



| "Offenes Ende" | Nanako Shikata | Stefan Seitz | Malerei und Skulptur | vom 25.4.2015 | 19 Uhr bis 28.06.2015

Auf den ersten Blick einander fremd, erscheint die Raumfrage in den feinen Papierarbeiten als auch in den Holzskulpturen zu schwelen. In der Skulptur wird Raum zur “leeren” Richtung, zum immaneten Bewegungsimpuls. Die Kippfigur `Carlos´ in der Schwebe verweist in erster Linie auf ihren offenen Negativraum, Abstände und Distanzen.

Im Gemälde wird die Raumfrage zur Narration der “ geteilten Strecke”. Anonyme Menschenfiguren gleichen vereinzelten Strichen einer Uhrenanzeige, die in Abständen zueinander ihre langen Schatten durch die Leere der Landschaft zum Horizont bahnen. Unbestimmt klafft die Zeit im Abstand der Zwischenräume “Ende offen”.


“end open” // Nanako Shikata// Stefan Seitz// painting and sculpture

The gallery invites to the show of current works of two frormer students of Balkenhols masterclass; Stefan Seitz and Nanako Shikata.

On the face of it peregrine and differing, the matter of space seems to smolder inside both works, the fine paper art as and the wooden sculptures. Considering the sculptures; space takes form as an “empty” direction and intrinsic impulse of movement. The almost pending wooden figure “Carlos” points notably to its open negative space, interspace and distance.

In painting the question of spacing becomes the narration of a “shared distance”. Anonymous figures resemble to the separated lines of a clock index, blazing a trail of shadows in the middle of nowhere to the horizon. Uncertain gapes the time in the space between “open end”.

in der Michaela Helfrich Galerie
12049 Berlin-Neukölln 
Herrfurthstr.29 

Oliver Dehn | hurricane eyevom | 20.3.2015 | 18 Uhr bis 18.04.2015

Inmitten von weltlichem Chaos und Unwetter findet sich Oliver Dehn mit seiner Malerei in der Windstille ein, im absurd ruhigen Auge eines Orkanwirbels. Erstarrt in der Zeitlichkeit einer Momentaufnahme, stehen die Dinge fixiert. Stilleben glänzen aus nächster Nähe eines Um- Raumes, den leere, drapierte Flaschenhälse bewohnen und sich über verdorbenem fast food die Eintagsfliegen ans Werk tun. Pastos leuchten Lebensmittel und Putzmittel, Wohn-raum und Accessoir- Alltägliches wird mitunter schillernd in farbliche Abstufungen und Kontraste gefasst.


 Tisch, 2015, 140x150cm
Der Alltag in der Kunst und umgekehrt; im Gemälde „Tisch“ aus diesem Jahr spiegelt sich der Ateliertisch, ein Pallettenbrett hochgestopft an Farben, wird geradezu auf die Leinwand übertragen. Gefäße und Utensilien harren aus, vor einem leeren, sich auflösenden Raum-hintergrund.

 Kontemplation, 2014, 60x80cm
Nahe am lichten Impressionismus, doch keineswegs als Eindrücke `en air plein´, verweilen die Darstellungen in alternierenden Lichtverhältnissen. Die Zeit erscheint unbestimmt. Durchfressen vom Beigeschmack eines expressionistischen Gestus, abgekratzt, zerlaufen, die Lichtstimmungen gebrochen und widersprüchlich, kehrt die Innerlichkeit ein. Ein Innehalten eine Entschleunigung des Alltäglichen.
Ingmarie Diehl
 Bad, 2014, 160x200cm

Press release
In the thick of earthly chaos und foul wheather, Oliver Dehn´s painting appears in a lull, right in the eye of a hurricane. Paralyzed in the temporality of a snap- shot, things stay focused.
Close still- life settings finish, inhabited by empty bottle necks and mayflys at work over addled fast food. Pastose, groceries and cleaner, chambers and accessory glow in nuanced and contrastive colors.
Daily grind sighted by fine art and reverse; the canvas named „table“, dated this year, mirrors the artist´s table. The palette, stuffed up on the board, gets alike mounted in material on the canvas. Vessels and implements hold out ahead of an empty and almost disappearing backround.
Close to the bright light and reflections of impressionism, the presentations linger, alternated in light, far- off the notions in ´air plein`. Time looms unsettled. Crossed and smacked by expressionist manner, scraped, melted, inconsistent in lightning conditions- ambiguity opens to inwardness. A backpedaling, a slow down of routine.


Öffnungszeiten der Galerie
Dienstag – Freitag: 16 - 20 Uhr
Samstag 14 - 20 Uhr
Montag ist Ruhetag.

Michaela Helfrich Galerie
Herrfurthstraße 29
12049 Berlin-Neukölln
U8-Boddinstraße, Bus 104, 167, Morusstraße

+49 (0) 30 62988990
+49 (0)179 3400341