Tjorg Douglas Beer: Figures and Paintings

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Figures and Paintings is Beer’s first solo exhibition with Galerie Mikael Andersen. The exhibition presents ceramic sculptures and paintings on canvas. The paintings are of a poetic-utopian transfigured alternative reality.

In Beer’s recent works arrangements and scenes develop during the painting process. Beer mixes ink, marker, paint, acrylic, oil paint and oil stick. As a result, faces and characters appear in the transition of overlapping colors. These figures are preserved and then arranged into fragmented sceneries akin to landscapes, interiors or sculptures. Squares of color ‘cover’ areas of the canvas; these unfinished figures, squares and color transitions come together in collage-like paintings.

Beer regularly visits Athens where he works with ceramics. The exhibition includes two large-scale ceramic figures. The figures are made in collaboration with a Greek ceramist. Beer develops almost stereotype shapes that deform during the process of modeling them. Before the surface dries Beer uses everyday materials from his studio such as plastic flowerpots, shower tubes, locks and marker caps to stamp faces and other details onto the figures. The titles of the works are also stamped onto the figures. After the firing of the sculptures they are covered with thick layers of glaze. The overlapping layers of clay, glaze and stamps create a ‘noisy’ look. The faces and shapes of the bodies recall both ancient and alien statues.

Tjorg Douglas Beer was born in Lübeck in 1973 and studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst, Hamburg. His work has been shown in important national and international museums such as Tate Modern, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and Kunstverein Hamburg. He is also represented in the collections of B. Melva Bucksbaum, New York, Margulies Collection, Miami, Collection of Mikki and Stanley Weithorn, New York, Beth Rudin de Woody, Florida, Falckenberg Collection, Hamburg, Herbert F. Johnson Museum, NY, Albertinum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Montblanc Cultural Foundation, Hamburg, and Persol Collection Milan.

Kilde: Galerie Mikael Andersen