Matthias Weischer paints interiors – deserted, and with just a few items of furniture or objects. The viewer finds himself directly in the room, whose sparse furnishings seem both familiar and alien. These interior views conjure up both absence and presence, as if someone had just left the room or were about to enter it. Weischer’s rooms are thus the beginning and end of a narrative, at one and the same time: they point to something that has happened or has yet to happen. Time and light gel into the immobile materiality of the paint, which seems to explode at every moment. In the midst of all this petrified figurativeness, pure painterly gestures force the viewer’s gaze to the surface, to a perception of the painting as an abstract work. The pastose application of the paint in several layers causes it to stand out from the canvas, turning the works into tactile sculptural objects.

Matthias Weischer, born 1973 in Elte (Westphalia), studied painting at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig. He was awarded the 2001-2002 “Junge Kunst in Essen” scholarship at the Kunsthaus Essen. He is also the holder of the 2004 prize of the “Rolex Mentor Protégé Arts Initiative”, with David Hockney as mentor. Simultan is Weischer’s first institutional solo exhibition.

A catalogue accompanying the exhibition will be published by Hatje Cantz.

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