Katja Davar
20 Jan - 12 Mar 2012
© Katja Davar
We Collected the World in Small Handfuls, 2011
Bleistift & Lack auf Papier / pencil & enamel on paper
136,5 x 235,5 cm
We Collected the World in Small Handfuls, 2011
Bleistift & Lack auf Papier / pencil & enamel on paper
136,5 x 235,5 cm
KATJA DAVAR
Even Ghosts Ring Bells Underwater
20 January – 12 March, 2012
While society seeks stability, the artist seeks infinity. (Sculpting in Time, Andrei Tarkovsky 1989) In her first solo exhibition at Vera Gliem gallery Katja Davar (*1968 in London) presents works,which include graphic and painterly techniques as well as gestural, intuitive and precisely deliberated processes. Metaphors, symbols, references and quotations from art history and literature infiltrate the drawn worlds and form a complex information structure that can be experienced both directly and indirectly. The artist engages in a series of existential investigations without losing sight of here and now.
The title of the exhibition Even Ghosts Ring Bells Underwater was inspired by a line from Dylan Thomas' poem Not From this Anger, which also served simultaneously as the starting point for two paper works, each work wrapped in an antique cloche. A silkscreen print showing thin, undulating white lines implemented on a dark, pencil background corresponds with the presentation in as much as its depicts the graphical movement of an oscilloscope during the experimental measurement of a bell ringing underwater. The muffled sounds of the bell, which are already spiritually charged, evoke paralyzing grief - an impression that is reinforced by the element of seclusion.
The second drawing "At the Tide Line", touches on of the idea of an underworld, a theme that runs throughout the exhibition. The tapered, drawn elements condense and darken towards the bottom. One is reminded of the cross-section of a body of water, and consequently of the transition between the world’s surface and an underworld.
The most minimalist expression is found in the drawing "Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines". A large, dark pencil drawing show dense, gestural lines that merge under a layer of varnish revealing a glossy surface. In conjunction with the bells, the image of a smooth water surface arises.
Despite their flatness they mark the moment of penetration into a dark unfathomable depth.
In the "Just-So Series" the mixture of acrylic and copper powder on canvas combine not only the medium of painting and drawing, but also scientific and mythological content. The represented subject oscillates between fishing net and molecular biological network. Their graphical properties are the opposite of the diffuse, infinite space of the underwater landscape. The depicted dragon - a creature of the underworld, changes between protector, guardian and monster. The mythological creature has positive as well as negative connotations in many different cultures and appears here to represent the united elements of good and evil.
The artist utilises an aesthetic reminiscent of the „grisaille“ technique employed in the early renaissance. By using copper as the single colour element in the otherwise monochromatic works, the artist references this precious metals’ importance as a world wide economic indicator.
A copper coloured circuit system brings the viewer from a dreamy underwater scenario, back to today’s rational reality.A similar dialectical approach is found in the large drawing "We Collected the World in Small Handfuls". In the centre of the composition, we see rock formations inspired by the Renaissance work "Corteo dei Magi" by Benozzo Gozzoli. The populated landscape and perfection of the perspective in Gozzoli`s painting becomes - in Davar ́s drawing - a world, abandoned yet expectant, where the laws of perspective and exact proportions are repealed. Structures that resemble roller coasters are the only remaining trace of civilization, ancient olive trees symbolize both life and death. So the drawing moves between a romantic landscape, representing a mirror to the soul, and a post-apocalyptic vision as described by Cormac McCarthy in his novel "The Road" (2006). Davar drew on this story of a father and sons’ journey through an extinct America, using the surreal scene, disrupted in it’s style and content by static and technoid elements as a form of inspiration for her titles and content.
The geometric structure of the soil, inspired by the painted ceilings of a fresco by Pinturicchio, as well as the inserted frail pencil lines which depict the rotation blades of a wind turbine, are more or less borrowed from the formal vocabulary of science. It is the rational component, which breaks the dream landscapes again and again and brings the viewers back to our highly technological age in which nothing is left to chance.
Even Ghosts Ring Bells Underwater
20 January – 12 March, 2012
While society seeks stability, the artist seeks infinity. (Sculpting in Time, Andrei Tarkovsky 1989) In her first solo exhibition at Vera Gliem gallery Katja Davar (*1968 in London) presents works,which include graphic and painterly techniques as well as gestural, intuitive and precisely deliberated processes. Metaphors, symbols, references and quotations from art history and literature infiltrate the drawn worlds and form a complex information structure that can be experienced both directly and indirectly. The artist engages in a series of existential investigations without losing sight of here and now.
The title of the exhibition Even Ghosts Ring Bells Underwater was inspired by a line from Dylan Thomas' poem Not From this Anger, which also served simultaneously as the starting point for two paper works, each work wrapped in an antique cloche. A silkscreen print showing thin, undulating white lines implemented on a dark, pencil background corresponds with the presentation in as much as its depicts the graphical movement of an oscilloscope during the experimental measurement of a bell ringing underwater. The muffled sounds of the bell, which are already spiritually charged, evoke paralyzing grief - an impression that is reinforced by the element of seclusion.
The second drawing "At the Tide Line", touches on of the idea of an underworld, a theme that runs throughout the exhibition. The tapered, drawn elements condense and darken towards the bottom. One is reminded of the cross-section of a body of water, and consequently of the transition between the world’s surface and an underworld.
The most minimalist expression is found in the drawing "Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines". A large, dark pencil drawing show dense, gestural lines that merge under a layer of varnish revealing a glossy surface. In conjunction with the bells, the image of a smooth water surface arises.
Despite their flatness they mark the moment of penetration into a dark unfathomable depth.
In the "Just-So Series" the mixture of acrylic and copper powder on canvas combine not only the medium of painting and drawing, but also scientific and mythological content. The represented subject oscillates between fishing net and molecular biological network. Their graphical properties are the opposite of the diffuse, infinite space of the underwater landscape. The depicted dragon - a creature of the underworld, changes between protector, guardian and monster. The mythological creature has positive as well as negative connotations in many different cultures and appears here to represent the united elements of good and evil.
The artist utilises an aesthetic reminiscent of the „grisaille“ technique employed in the early renaissance. By using copper as the single colour element in the otherwise monochromatic works, the artist references this precious metals’ importance as a world wide economic indicator.
A copper coloured circuit system brings the viewer from a dreamy underwater scenario, back to today’s rational reality.A similar dialectical approach is found in the large drawing "We Collected the World in Small Handfuls". In the centre of the composition, we see rock formations inspired by the Renaissance work "Corteo dei Magi" by Benozzo Gozzoli. The populated landscape and perfection of the perspective in Gozzoli`s painting becomes - in Davar ́s drawing - a world, abandoned yet expectant, where the laws of perspective and exact proportions are repealed. Structures that resemble roller coasters are the only remaining trace of civilization, ancient olive trees symbolize both life and death. So the drawing moves between a romantic landscape, representing a mirror to the soul, and a post-apocalyptic vision as described by Cormac McCarthy in his novel "The Road" (2006). Davar drew on this story of a father and sons’ journey through an extinct America, using the surreal scene, disrupted in it’s style and content by static and technoid elements as a form of inspiration for her titles and content.
The geometric structure of the soil, inspired by the painted ceilings of a fresco by Pinturicchio, as well as the inserted frail pencil lines which depict the rotation blades of a wind turbine, are more or less borrowed from the formal vocabulary of science. It is the rational component, which breaks the dream landscapes again and again and brings the viewers back to our highly technological age in which nothing is left to chance.