12.02.2010. - 06.03.2010

as if by magic

1010 | AITCH | DIXON | LABRONA | NOPER | OTHER | PRODUKT | SADDO

opening 12.02.2010 at 8 pm

aftershowparty at 11 pm with DJ HITO @ eschschloraque

DEUTSCHE VERSION HIER!

Every serious art show should have a theme, subject, or a suggestive title. This show does all that but it also makes an exception. The title doesn't refer to a specific subject or theme, but tries to say something about the works of every artist who takes part in this show, about the strange gathering of a few people from different parts of the world, different backgrounds, experiences and styles, who want to meet and show their works and paint together. And it also tries not to say too much …

The works of each of the 8 artists in the show, have a more or less obvious magical, fantastical component or feeling: the geometrical, almost abstract fantastical characters of 1010, the intricate world populated by chubby cute creatures of Aitch, the paintings/collages of pop characters, crude colors, hyper realistic landscapes and potraits of Juan Carlos Noria, the expressionistic compositions of characters grouped almost like in magical processions in the works of Labrona, the delicious multi eyed/handed/faced monstrous characters of Noper, the magical mix of realistic portraits, intricate colorful patterns and grotesque members in Other's characters, the dreamy/nightmarish characters or pencil drawn animations of Produkt and the colorful backgrounds, mystical graphical signs and the cute or grotuesque fantastical creatures of Saddo.

Also, the 8 artists are somehow connected to each other - either they met at some point in their lives, lived in the same city or worked together before in different formations;, but never all of them appeared in the same show, under this line-up - and now they are brought together not through the powers of hazard or fate, but almost...as if by magic.

1010, artist/street artist from Hamburg, he started painting graffiti in the mid 90´s and is still active as a writer. His works deal with ground codes and patterns that came up with the human mind and existence.
The style is based on geometric forms and reduction. The figures and objects are placed in a minimalistic often surreal surrounding.

www.flickr.com/photos/nakedape/
www.10101010101010101010.biz/

Aitch - romanian artist and illustrator, currently living in Berlin, graduated the University of Art and Design in Timisoara, Romania and exhibited in many galleries from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Romania, Denmark, US, etc.
She started drawing weird chubby fantastic creatures while she was in University as some sort of subversive reaction to the academical way of treating the human body and anatomy. She developed these characters until she got to gather some of them in a book about "Domestic Monsters", which remained in the prototype state. The book contains illustrations and short biographies of monsters who are responsible for all the daily troubles like tangled hair, fear of driving in cars, waking up in the middle of the night to eat, getting a shitty present for Xmas, falling asleep in class, etc.
Some of her artworks contain even bizarre religious details mixed in with fantastical creatures in nightmarish scenes - she identifies the early boring mornings spent in the church in her grandmother's village, accompanied by the smell of wax and frankincense, as influences for the series "Saints and Sinners".
She recently started to apply all her experience with character design, graphics, illustration, in hand made pillows, plushies, brooches, pendants, has been selling them in art fairs and flee markets and shops in Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, Bucharest, Hannover etc and has been also featured in many design and crafts magazines.

http://pooqpoo.carbonmade.com/
http://aitchmade.blogspot.com/

Juan Carlos Noria aka Dixon aka Royal - born in Caracas, Venezuela, currently living in Barcelona, Spain, grew up as a teen in Ottawa, Canada where he became an accomplished figure skater, but after hitting the rigid class structure of the sport he found comfort (and discomfort) in visual art, on the streets with a paint can, postering, skateboarding, feeling police. The rise of the tide of CNNesque culture in North America found him painting with increasing anger, so he needed to change the channel and moved to barcelona in 2004, to find tranquilo, a new world view, and new audiences.
Painter of our times, confluence of cultures and contradictions, always true to his subversive nature, Juan undercuts his own personality allowing himself to explore two other personas and visual styles, working sometimes under the pseudonyms of Dixon or Royal. Influenced by his contemporaries Mark Marsters, Pat Thompson and Dave Cooper, he is still himself-singular Juan - without pretense, full of concern for others, quick to laugh and quicker to paint something ripe.

www.flickr.com/mejuan
www.red-eye.es/
www.d-i-x-o-n.com/
aoacollective.com
http:/dixon.them.ca
http://royal.them.ca
http://fotolog.com/mejuan
http://vimeo.com/channelzero
http://ekosystem.org/tag/dixon
www.formatmag.com/category/blogs/juan-carlos-noria/

Labrona- even in Montreal's deepest winter, rusting freight trains are always his surface of choice, every time he walks to the train yard a composition will come to his mind. Never using sketches, Labrona's oilstick drawings on trains are kind of sketches in themselves - he always thinks and refers to his photo album of freight train paintings like a sketchbook.
His early inspirations are his dad's drawings, and also painters like Picasso, Diego Rivera and Expressionists like Max Beckmann, who is a noticeable influence in his figurative work. He uses the human figure, especially the face, to convey emotions and ideas, but the state of the world, war and other issues, often provide a subtext for many of his paintings. "Painting is my language, so it's really hard to put into words. I let the work tell the story".

www.flickr.com/photos/labrona/
www.fotolog.com/labrona

Noper - also known as Noperinho, Le Nauperre or The Mighty Son of the Father of Noper or the sick and slimey Noperovicz, is a Romanian urban artist and illustrator. He currently lives in Bucharest and works as Art Director with an advertising agency. In his early carreer he often found himslef juggling with various illustration styles, but his more mature work clearly underline his passion to create fabulous and bizarre characters and worlds. His final works are always ellaborated, always yearning to be watched thoroughly in order to discover all the details. He finds his muses in every-day life, be it a funny event or a month-old frustration. That's why the majority of his surreal characters often are a "day to day" satirical quotation. He never plans or sketches a drawing, but prefers to pump every bit of his spontaneous creativity on any type of canvas he has in front: a piece of paper, a tablet, a wall or a napkin. This is how every work gets an organic, unique feeling. He goes by the motto "If I see it, maybe i'll feel it. If I feel it, fuck I'll draw it"

http://noper.ro/

Other - 37 years old male, 6'2' tall, dark hair blue eyes, he looks like a poor artist who doesn't eat enough and has dark rings under his eyes...Looking for a long term relationship with a similar aged woman who must be able to deal with a depressed artist who spends most of his time working inside messing the apartment, or outside, mostly during the nights, painting trains until 5 in the morning. His hobbies are: printmaking, skateboarding, spending too much time on the internet looking for a song to get him inspired to paint, romantic candle lit dinners in abandoned buildings, rollerblading along the canal, graffiti, hanging out in train yards, or peaceful nights at home in his sweatpants watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, wondering how to pay for the next rent.

www.flickr.com/photos/other/

Produkt - is a painter and street artist from Montreal, Canada, he paints from dreams, nightmares and vague memories. He likes disrupting public spaces with posters and hand painted freaks, painting on freight trains, canvases, interesting pieces of garbage and old book covers. He recently became involved in making meticulous pencil-rendered animated music videos for various musicians. He's not married, has never published a detective novel (nor has any intention to), and once owned a goldfish but it died.

www.fotolog.com/stanleverage

Patrick Watson’s ‘The Great Escape’:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA2h9PrIUxs

Lhasa de Sela’s ‘Rising’:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hTpR-TYTZ0&feature=fvst

Emilie Mover :
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRX0z2KSKoY

Saddo – romanian artist, illustrator and street artist, currently living in Berlin, Germany - always attracted towards a fantastical, sometimes bizarre imagery, since he was a kid watching tons of horror and fantasy movies... He learned the basics of drawing in Art University, in Cluj Napoca, Romania, but his first real important step towards what he is now as an artist, was discovering street art, and beeing founding member of one of the first street art crews in Romania,
He's pretty moody, and this reflects in his works which sometimes are dreamy, colourful, with a smooth fantastical feel, sometimes dark, bizarre, monocromatic and sharp lined, or rarely abstract mixes of colors, textures, graphic signs and symbols. Saddo is influenced and motivated by his girlfriend Aitch, one of his all-time favorite artists, but also by dozens of other artists whose works he follows every day on their Flickr pages and blogs. He tries to filter all the influences and suggestions through his own sensibility and vision and always pushes himself to experiment new techniques, mediums and subjects. He doesn't have a very rational, structural approach in his creative process, but thinks that the pieces he creates are similar to dreams - collections of suggestions, details coming from lines in books, images from real life or movies, feelings, moods - all merging together into a scene or character or abstract composition.

www.flickr.com/photos/saddo
www.behance.net/Saddo