Sebastian Schrader Blindgänger
Berlin 16 Mar – 14 Apr 2018
Sebastian Schrader's works are firmly set in the „in-between“ transition. This in-between phase is thematic as well as being the core style of the artist's trademark. The figures are captured in the before and after; painted between representational and abstract; and positioned in the midst of life and art. They are transitional states without a dynamic perspective, except the willful ambition to illuminate the human standstill. The paintings capture the elements of change that deliberately deepens them, and makes them noticeable without standing too far from the image.
Found within the structure and presentation of an unfolding situation, Schrader confesses to a comprehensively perceived cultural pessimism; which deals with complex themes: what is happiness and how does the meaning come into one’s life; and what is the value of freedom in a neo-liberal system? The main protagonists are only active in a moment of denial and recognizable through their existence - without direction or reference.
Schrader finds complementary transformations through the paint and has the ability to merge the states of the figures into a range of things and forms. Cardboard boxes, pennants, balloons and confetti continue to appear – made up of triangles, circles, and points. Pure form and detailed objects are also found in Schrader’s paintings. Equally entitled to participate in the work, they temporarily unite the painting „in-between“ abstract and figurative. Representatives of this merge are, above all, internal forms, geometrical elements between figurative fragments and pictorial places that remain ambivalent between content attribution and pure colour space. As painting penetrates figuration, in maintains this balance; one can see the folds of a jacket and at the same time the placement of the individual colour surfaces.
The grey-brown and the fertile colour of ochre from which everything grows – and into which everything can enter again – finally preserves the „in-between“ in the narrow, uncertain space that produces an endless semi-darkness.
Found within the structure and presentation of an unfolding situation, Schrader confesses to a comprehensively perceived cultural pessimism; which deals with complex themes: what is happiness and how does the meaning come into one’s life; and what is the value of freedom in a neo-liberal system? The main protagonists are only active in a moment of denial and recognizable through their existence - without direction or reference.
Schrader finds complementary transformations through the paint and has the ability to merge the states of the figures into a range of things and forms. Cardboard boxes, pennants, balloons and confetti continue to appear – made up of triangles, circles, and points. Pure form and detailed objects are also found in Schrader’s paintings. Equally entitled to participate in the work, they temporarily unite the painting „in-between“ abstract and figurative. Representatives of this merge are, above all, internal forms, geometrical elements between figurative fragments and pictorial places that remain ambivalent between content attribution and pure colour space. As painting penetrates figuration, in maintains this balance; one can see the folds of a jacket and at the same time the placement of the individual colour surfaces.
The grey-brown and the fertile colour of ochre from which everything grows – and into which everything can enter again – finally preserves the „in-between“ in the narrow, uncertain space that produces an endless semi-darkness.
Artists