Mirus Gallery is pleased to present Spindrift, an exhibition of new paintings by Matthias Düwel, and the first solo show for the artist with the gallery. The show highlights Düwel’s ambitious semi-abstract panoramic landscapes, depicting a hazardous world blighted by the constant cycle of over-consumption and waste that defines the modern lifestyle.

Emerging out of the Neo-Expressionist Zeitgeist of the late 1970’s/early 1980’s Berlin, Düwel’s approach has always been painterly in essence. His elaborate “freeze-frame” compositions evolve from the painting process; the subject-matter emerges organically, built up from the application of many layers of loose brushwork. His iconography exists in that dream-like space between abstraction and figuration, where things dissolve, evolve only to disintegrate into ambiguity again. The vibrant, saturated colors, interspersed with subtle grays, are chosen intuitively and evoke the false joviality found in our consumer society.

Düwel’s intricate paintings allow the viewer to experience a world of perpetual motion and constant change, ¬where everything is in flux and nothing remains at rest. The work bears witness to ecological devastation in the wake of the developed world’s rampant mass consumerism and wastefulness.

His statement reads:

We have arrived at a unique point in time when production and consumption are simultaneous. No sooner is a thing brand new, it is used up, dispensable - and not just things but places and people too...The saturated color found in my painting underscores the false exuberance of this growth and consumption. Mixed in with images of garbage are moments of nostalgia, as memory becomes imbedded in and degraded by the new.

Spindrift, or sea spray off a cresting wave, references Düwel’s use of the oceans as a metaphor between the biological systems found underwater in coral reef habitats, and our own human compulsion to colonize and develop, always expanding. Additionally, the earth’s oceans act as the exemplar of the current state of the planet: a vastness being used up and destroyed –  a wave peaking and on the brink of crashing down.

Matthias Düwel was born in Berlin, Germany and currently lives and works in Oracle, Arizona. He received his MFA from the Universität der Künste, Berlin and did his post-graduate studies at the New York Studio School, New York, He has shown with Martha Otero Gallery, Los Angeles, Moeller Fine Art, New York, William Havu Gallery, Denver, Galerie Bellier, Paris, and Galerie Brusberg, Berlin, among others. Additionally his work has been exhibited at Art Basel, Art Basel-Miami Beach, Art Cologne and the New York Armory.

His work is held in numerous public and private collections, including Stadtmuseum Berlin, Musées d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva, and the Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, and has been reviewed in the Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Hyperallergic, High Fructose and more. He has taught at Parsons School of Design, New York, and today serves as a lead art faculty at Pima Community College in Tucson.

Mirus Gallery is a dynamic exhibition space established by entrepreneur Paul Hemming. The gallery features a program of contemporary artwork by emerging and mid-career artists in both solo and thematically organized group shows. Mirus Gallery highlights work that emphasizes skill and process and aims to engage viewers on a sentient, emotional, and evocative level.

Mirus Gallery
540 Howard Street
San Francisco (CA) 94105 United States
Tel. +1 (415) 5433440
bailey@mirusgallery.com
www.mirusgallery.com

Opening hours
Tuesday - Saturday
From 10am to 6pm