ALEX FEUERSTEIN Vulkan

About

We are pleased to present Rauchzeichen, Alex Feuerstein's third solo exhibition at galerie burster Berlin. The exhibition shows new figurative motifs and small-format works from Feuerstein's series Vulkan, which combine art-historical references and contemporary perspectives on landscape painting in a strong, earthy colour palette.

The compositions in Feuerstein's paintings show abstract scenes that oscillate between fiction and reality. Banal perspectives change into dream-like sequences that are left so wide open and alienated that they can neither be clearly assigned in time nor in space: Is it the sun that shines there or perhaps the moon instead? Are the bizarrely billowing creatures really wisps of smoke? 

The painting ground is a classic chalk ground, always applied to wooden panels, which is given a particularly smooth and absorbent surface through elaborate repeated sanding and painting in alternation. Feuerstein's painting process is characterised by repeated overlapping of layers of paint and their partial removal with the help of blades, painting knives and by sanding, so that not only different and very contrasting qualities of colour and structure result on the picture surface, but above all an intriguing surface structuring. –– Krisztina Jütten M.A.

Feuerstein works without any motivic model and allows randomly created forms and textures to influence the further steps in the creation process of his works. Thus the viewer's focus is lost in Feuerstein's seething textural landscapes. In his collage and camouflage-like compositions, in which subjects and objects, foreground and background seem to merge, Feuerstein invites us to participate in his games of interpretation, which inevitably immerse us in his intimate, bizarre and obstinate world. 

I am not interested in the visualisation of a possible reality, but rather in the projection of an imagination, and therefore the often schematic or simplified figures and landscapes seem more like symbols for the respective things than their actual depiction. –– Alex Feuerstein

Alex Feuerstein (*1981 in Heidelberg, Germany) lives and works in Güttersbach, Germany. He completed his studies in painting in 2013 at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe as a master student under Prof. Erwin Gross. His works are represented in the collection of the Ministry of Science, Research and Art Baden-Württemberg, Germany, the Fondazione Museo di Maggio Milano, Italy, the Kulturstiftung Sparkasse Karlsruhe-Ettlingen, Germany, the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, USA and the Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe, Germany, among others.