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Lot Essay
What Matthias Weischer's depiction of a hauntingly empty room lacks in signs of human habitation it makes up for in atmosphere. Weischer uses his considerable painterly skills to imbue the bare room with a palpable sense of unease and tension. Sheltered under the beams of an attic room, the sparse walls are decorated with the remnants of a life once lived. The beige plastered walls are decorated only with three pictures taped to their scratched and pot-marked surface. The utilitarian green linoleum floor, with its prominent and mysterious multi-coloured target pattern, is broken up only by a long, low bench place up against the wall. The most prominent sign of any previous occupant is the length of knotted rope hanging, ominously, from the beam in the ceiling. As one of Weischer's sought after 'interior' paintings, Untitled shows the quintessential private space, closed off from the outside world. Normally a place of privacy and safety, the domestic interior has long been a place of fascination for our naturally voyeuristic instincts. But in Untitled the interior become a mysterious and unfamiliar, a sight of ambiguity and unfamiliarity.
With such restrained composition, it is a mark of Weischer's skill as a painter that he produces an image of such intrigue and mystery using the minimum of elements. A graduate of the Leipzig School, Weischer is a member of a post-modern generation of painters, including Neo Rauch and David Schnell, for whom the importance of the painterly process is paramount. Untitled, like much of Weischer's best work, conveys a sense of theatricality - of looking into a scene just abandoned by its inhabitants leaving a space filled with an intense atmosphere. Like an empty stage of a deserted theatre once the site of laughter and drama, we are now left pondering what characters once filled this room and what scenes were once played out her. Although devoid of figures and their possessions, a strange human presence still permeates the present lot, leaving behind it the vestiges of human history.
Like many members of the Leipzig school, Matthias Weischer is a member of the generation of Germans who were born under Communism but then emerged into the West after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Figurative art that was dismissed as pass in the West had never suffered such an ignominious fall in Eastern European art schools. The city of Leipzig had prided itself in its painterly heritage dating back to Lucas Cranach and its isolation from the rest of the world meant that it had been relatively untainted by much of the influences of contemporary art. The aftermath of the collapse of communism caused a jolt of excitement to race through Europe and as the two halves of Europe finally came together many were adjusting to the challenges. Traditionally, the Leipzig Academy had been a bastion of social realist painting but Weischer absorbed both tradition and the innovation that he accessed after the fall of communism to develop his own unique vision of painterly perfection.
Although Weischer's flawless rendition of textured surfaces, such as the scuff marks on the walls and floor, are prime examples of his painterly precision, the artist is at ensure that this painting is just that, a painting. His masterly application of paint on canvas is not meant to be an illusion, it is a stark re-invention and exploration of a medium that many artists of Weischer's generation thought was extinct. This deliberate allusion to the renewed possibilities of paint is give physical presence in an extraordinary section in the lower right section of the canvas. In stark contrast to the rest of the highly worked canvas, Weischer leaves an area untamed by the conventions of realism. The loose brushwork and drips of liquid paint clear evidence of the artist's hand at work.
With such restrained composition, it is a mark of Weischer's skill as a painter that he produces an image of such intrigue and mystery using the minimum of elements. A graduate of the Leipzig School, Weischer is a member of a post-modern generation of painters, including Neo Rauch and David Schnell, for whom the importance of the painterly process is paramount. Untitled, like much of Weischer's best work, conveys a sense of theatricality - of looking into a scene just abandoned by its inhabitants leaving a space filled with an intense atmosphere. Like an empty stage of a deserted theatre once the site of laughter and drama, we are now left pondering what characters once filled this room and what scenes were once played out her. Although devoid of figures and their possessions, a strange human presence still permeates the present lot, leaving behind it the vestiges of human history.
Like many members of the Leipzig school, Matthias Weischer is a member of the generation of Germans who were born under Communism but then emerged into the West after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Figurative art that was dismissed as pass in the West had never suffered such an ignominious fall in Eastern European art schools. The city of Leipzig had prided itself in its painterly heritage dating back to Lucas Cranach and its isolation from the rest of the world meant that it had been relatively untainted by much of the influences of contemporary art. The aftermath of the collapse of communism caused a jolt of excitement to race through Europe and as the two halves of Europe finally came together many were adjusting to the challenges. Traditionally, the Leipzig Academy had been a bastion of social realist painting but Weischer absorbed both tradition and the innovation that he accessed after the fall of communism to develop his own unique vision of painterly perfection.
Although Weischer's flawless rendition of textured surfaces, such as the scuff marks on the walls and floor, are prime examples of his painterly precision, the artist is at ensure that this painting is just that, a painting. His masterly application of paint on canvas is not meant to be an illusion, it is a stark re-invention and exploration of a medium that many artists of Weischer's generation thought was extinct. This deliberate allusion to the renewed possibilities of paint is give physical presence in an extraordinary section in the lower right section of the canvas. In stark contrast to the rest of the highly worked canvas, Weischer leaves an area untamed by the conventions of realism. The loose brushwork and drips of liquid paint clear evidence of the artist's hand at work.