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Works on paper by
Alex Hamilton, Jürgen von
Dückerhoff & Christian
Holstad
Exhibition dates:
22nd May to 4th July 2009
Alex Hamilton,
Crossroads 7
Charcoal pencil, gouache, watercolour, pen and
ink, airbrush, photocopy
84.2 x 175 cm,
2009
Patrick
Heide Contemporary Art is pleased to present ‘ If you
melted, I would melt myself into you’, an exhibition that
brings together works on paper by Alex Hamilton, Jürgen von
Dückerhoff & Christian Holstad.
Readapting
surrealist techniques Hamilton, Holstad and von Dückerhoff
rub, erase and redraw printed book pages, newspaper images and
photocopies and turn cityscapes, bodies or faces into
alienated unnerving scenarios. The use of these peculiar
techniques such as grattage and frottage generates chaotic and
shifting urban landscapes, melted and deformed bodies or
featureless faces.
What binds the
works of these artists together, is the creation of tormented
figures and discomforted realities where elements of vision,
dreams, memories and psychological distortions merge, immersed
in an atmosphere of almost violent isolation..
In this sense, ‘If
you melted, I would melt myself into you’ can also be seen as
a reinterpretation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism. If
‘existence precedes essence’ and subjectivity is the point of
departure, an individual is at first nothing; he makes himself
what he wants to be. There are no norms to conform to; a
person is free, rootless and responsible for herself resulting
in a human condition of total individual
isolation.
Jürgen von
Dückerhoff, Untitled (Ribbon)
Erasing on offset-print
54
x 37,5 cm, 2005
The New Photocopy
Drawings from “Fourth Plinth” and ‘Wave Drawings’ series show
Alex Hamilton’ particular strength in large scale works on
paper. In “Crossroads 7”. the largest photocopy drawing ever
made by the Australian artist, Hamilton reworks a photocopied
image in the usual manner by rubbing out parts, adding new
forms and structures before re-photocopying and repeating the
erasing and redrawing process.
Meticulously
detailed drawings yet wonderfully weird, they reveal the
fascinating nature of Hamilton’s imagination. His compositions
shift between real-life architecture and futuristic utopia,
they move from familiar form and urban detail to the language
of signs and visual illusion. Perspectives are created and
abolished, fore- and background detach and merge. The space
and its reading becomes absurd but also
revitalised.
Christian Holstad,
The Searching Wind Six Elements
Graphite on archival erased
newspaper
15.9 x 23.5 cm each, 2006
The works on paper
by American artist, Christian Holstad, belong to the series
The Searching Wind. Sourced from black-and-white photographs
cut from newspapers leaving large parts untouched, Holstad
alters the original image with both ends of a pencil. The NY
based artist carefully erases the ink from parts of the image
to create deformed figures that seem to melt together and
merge with their backgrounds. Details are added in pencil to
contort, warp and dramatically recontextualize the original
image. The fragility of these drawings and the sentiments they
convey expresses Holstad' s ability to create poignant
artworks from the most mundane sources whose uglification and
defacement reveal the true face of society and politics in the
US.
Jürgen von
Dückerhoff, Untitled (Lady 50's)
Erasing & Frottage on
offset-print
30,5 x 22 cm, 2008
Although the
juxtaposition of objects and characters in Jürgen von
Dückerhoff may seem entirely arbitrary and subconscious at
first glance, there is careful control of the alienation
process in the German artist’s imagery. Printed book pages of
portraits of a war general or a hippie couple, gatherings like
a communist sports propaganda event people mutate into
surrealist nightmares and ironic commentaries on our society
at large. Lautréamont's 'beautiful chance encounter of an
umbrella and a sewing machine on an dissection table' turns
nasty and wild but doesn’t loose its miraculous
spell.
In the last week of
the exhibition Alex Hamilton’s first comprehensive catalogue
with a text by Jonathan Griffin will be launched in the
gallery.Hamilton was born in Adelaide ( Australia) in 1958. He
has widely exhibited in the UK, Australia and the US and has
lived in London since 1996. His works is part of several high
profile collections such as the Saatchi Collection, Victoria
and Albert Museum, the Baltimore and Denver Museum of
Contemporary Art.
Alex Hamilton,
Wave drawing with Vertical Join
Pit Pen (light fast indian
ink) on Photocopy
41.5 x 58.5 cm, 2009
Patrick
Heide Contemporary Art sprung from a project space on
London’s Church Street, which was opened in 2004 showcasing an
international repertory of artists that later on formed the
base of the gallery program. In summer 2007 Patrick Heide
Contemporary Art was founded to continue with parts of the
already established program and to complement and reinforce it
with a selection of new artists.
Patrick Heide
Contemporary Art fosters an international range of emerging
and mid-career artists. The program ranges from the
politically motivated projects of Thomas Kilpper and the
anthropological sculptures of Francesco Pessina to the
playfully yet obsessively executed abstract canvases of Karoly
Keserü. The gallery is particularly dedicated to the medium of
drawing by showing exceptional works like the systematic
drawing series by Isabel Albrecht, the alienating Photocopy
Drawings by Alex Hamilton and the movement based installations
by Sharon Louden.
Patrick Heide Contemporary Art aims to
provide a rather timeless alternative to an art world that is
often aimlessly theoretical and introspective yet addicted to
marketing and fashion. In an attempt to reveal the underlying
patterns of human society, its artists hope to create art that
is intellectually challenging and socially relevant yet
sensually and spiritually charged and technically
accomplished.
Patrick Heide Contemporary Art hopes to give
prominence to artistic statements concerned about the
condition of nature and human nature, its urbanisation,
history and transformation.
Alex Hamilton, Fourth Plinth
6,
Gouache, pastel, charcoal pencil, pen and ink, pit pen,
airbrush, photocopy
86.8 X 99 cm, 2009
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