Berlin | ArtRegion: Berlin, Charlottenburg

Wentrup

Axel Geis: Anmut, Schönheit und Verführung (mit vielen modernen Details)

7. August – 4. September 2021

The overarching theme in Axel Geis oeuvre is painting. Painting not only as a medium but primarily in the form of the technique, i.e., the application of wet colors by brush on a painting surface in all its possibilities. The artist is especially interested in the – almost unconscious – process of the genuinely painterly. The object of the painting itself, the subject, recedes behind this process. Nevertheless, it is primarily portraits and figures (and occasionally animals) on which the artist conducts his painterly studies. Although the depiction of people, in particular, seems to have been robbed of a large part of their individuality and does not represent portraits in the classical sense, the results are astonishingly diverse.

The artist often uses film stills as a source for his motifs. He does not proceed systematically in his choice of models but rather exclusively intuitively and „hopes for a productive coincidence“ (Geis). One could almost say that the choices of concrete motifs are merely initial ‚triggers‘ in which he sees the potential for a possible painterly realization. The respective ‚motifs‘ are then stripped of their possible narrative context, both formally and in terms of content so that they no longer allow any conclusions to be drawn about their (cinematographic) origins.