Michael Biberstein
09 Feb - 21 Mar 2015
MICHAEL BIBERSTEIN
9 February – 21 March 2015
From February 9, the Galleria Giorgio Persano presents a series of large canvases by the Swiss artist, Michael Biberstein, with a selection of works that is particularly representative, in which nature is manifested as a primordial force and horizons of clouds unfold that are actually mental spaces.
Mindful of German and English Romanticism, for Biberstein painting is not so much of landscape, as on landscape. According to the artist: “...landscapes are just an excuse to talk about something that goes in the direction of the psyche”. What emerges as a result are deep affinities with Zen painting, which considers the actual process of painting as an integral part of a spiritual practice.
The archaic, fluid and transparent atmospheres depicted in the broad canvases are therefore not only a hymn to the background, an overlapping of tones, with heaven and earth distinct no more: painting for Biberstein becomes a systematic method by which he can push further; it becomes a meditative state.
Biberstein’s works sometimes take the form of diptychs and triptychs, and inserting monochrome elements between the patches of clouds, they come close to minimalism, in a sort of impossible dialogue between Romanticism, the sublime and conceptual art.
The black surfaces juxtaposed with the timeless landscape, the large size and the “reduction in scale” of the viewer, thus raise questions about the truthfulness of perception and of painting.
9 February – 21 March 2015
From February 9, the Galleria Giorgio Persano presents a series of large canvases by the Swiss artist, Michael Biberstein, with a selection of works that is particularly representative, in which nature is manifested as a primordial force and horizons of clouds unfold that are actually mental spaces.
Mindful of German and English Romanticism, for Biberstein painting is not so much of landscape, as on landscape. According to the artist: “...landscapes are just an excuse to talk about something that goes in the direction of the psyche”. What emerges as a result are deep affinities with Zen painting, which considers the actual process of painting as an integral part of a spiritual practice.
The archaic, fluid and transparent atmospheres depicted in the broad canvases are therefore not only a hymn to the background, an overlapping of tones, with heaven and earth distinct no more: painting for Biberstein becomes a systematic method by which he can push further; it becomes a meditative state.
Biberstein’s works sometimes take the form of diptychs and triptychs, and inserting monochrome elements between the patches of clouds, they come close to minimalism, in a sort of impossible dialogue between Romanticism, the sublime and conceptual art.
The black surfaces juxtaposed with the timeless landscape, the large size and the “reduction in scale” of the viewer, thus raise questions about the truthfulness of perception and of painting.