Exhibitions in Galerie Baer

Eckehard Fuchs

»ballare« painting/drawing

Eckehard Fuchs’ depicted subjects occupy the intersection between observed human behaviours and an imagination pervaded by nightmares, sex and estrangement, a vision which has been formally trained by diverse impressions of visual codes throughout art history. The lavishly expressive Romanesque and early Gothic sculpture as well as the exaggerated caricatures of William Hogarth’s prints offer points of reference.

With his figures, Fuchs investigates interpersonal interactions. Visual tales are populated by characters that serve as ‘wildcards of human patterns of action’, at times well-disguised. Dwarfs, giants, grey-bearded heads on childlike bodies, as well as beings with torsos of mythological creatures could all originate from a faraway fairyland, whereas the compositions as well as the buoyant colourful palette could just as easily refer to the world of comic books. In his paintings, a paradoxical mixture of intimacy and distance emerges from the pool of motifs, corresponding formally to the characters’ various states of attraction or repulsion. (Johannes Schmidt)