René Schoemakers. Dystopia/Fugen

About

For the first time in Berlin the exhibition presents central pieces of the artist's series 'The Missing Kink' (2014-2015), which previously has been presented in two institutional solo exhibitions this year, as well as first works from a new cycle entitled 'Dystopia'. It is difficult to put Schoemakers' work into the current discourses and context of contemporary figurative painting. On the one hand his technique evidences a precision and naturalism that approaches old masters but at the same time the paintings are always conceptually related to one another. They form conceptual and visual connections which totally break with classical narrative structures or representative intentions as far as naturalism is concerned. The work of the artist in projects and series which are worked on for a long time reflect the ambiguity and complexity of the individual works. "If darkness had a cadence, it would be audible in the presence of René Schoemakers' pictures. With pessimistic precision he expresses a feeling of crisis, which is very contemporary and almost unashamedly current, challenging us with occasionally evil metaphors." (Christoph Tannert)