Niels Sievers – in bloom
Malerei/Painting

23. April – 28. Mai 2016/April 22 – May 28, 2016

Vernissage/Private View: 22. April 2016 von 19-21 Uhr/April 22, 2016, 19-21

Info

With “In Bloom“, we display in a one-man-show new paintings by Niels Sievers, who lives and works in Berlin. Sievers, born 1979 in Niebüll (Germany), studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf as a student of Jörg Immendorff.

Known particularly through his landscape paintings of a twilight world, Sievers has now adopted urban motifs and landscapes, for example the Landwehrkanal (canal) which starts in Berlin-Kreuzberg and ends in Berlin-Charlottenburg. In his latest paintings, the canal and the city blend almost into abstraction – water and sky merge almost into one element, solid structures, bushes, trees and buildings, appear shimmering in nuances of grey. The artist creates a particularly diffuse atmosphere, one which is silent and contemplative. For this Niels Sievers has perfected his unique method of painting, which combines classical media, such as oil and egg tempera with a contemporary technique which is still used in street art, spray paint.

Depending on where the viewer stands and the source of light, one can perceive changing colours and the displacement of elements within the picture. Occasionally the architecture emerges from the silver-grey shimmering surface, streetlights throw sparing points of light, from time to time reflecting onto the water. The Landwehrkanal, surrounded by bushes and trees, turns into a magic space devoid of people. Likewise the city itself, which in his big painting “One” is seen from a bird’s eye perspective as a vibrant network of streets and lights, simultaneously referring to both space and time. The new paintings by Niels Sievers oscillate between abstraction and figuration, in which his artistic development points in a new and further reduction.

For this exhibition the artist has painted vinyl records using vegetal elements, which seem to be both traditional, like the Old Masters, and contemporary at the same time. In his paintings on vinyl, especially the combination of pastose paint like meticulous brushwork, Niels Sievers has created something precious.