Matthias Weischer
ALICE, ARMIN UND ALL DIE ANDEREN. ARBEITEN AUF PAPIER
11.09. – 16.10.2011

The artist Matthias Weischer (born 1973 in Elte, Westphalia) has so far been perceived primarily as a painter. After studying at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, his paintings quickly gained him recognition and international attention. With his auratic paintings, which show houses or interiors with sometimes surreal staffage, Matthias Weischer soon became one of the style-defining representatives of the so-called “New Leipzig School”.

As a scholarship holder at the Villa Massimo, his work in 2007 during his scholarship stay in Rome included landscape and garden motifs in addition to the studio-related interior motifs. The turn to the outside space also meant a shift in the work process from the studio to the open air. This gave graphic work a higher priority for the artist. The passionate painter, who has always drawn and was also trained in various graphic techniques during his studies, now uses pencil and pastel, watercolor and linocuts as faster working methods in order to gain a more direct understanding of the situations in the outside world.

Back in Germany in 2010, Matthias Weischer temporarily put his successful painting on hold in order to delve deeper into the possibilities of different graphic processes for his work. Painted pictures were replaced by etchings, lithographs, linocuts and finally the so-called “pulp paintings”. Leipzig, the city of book printing and publishing, offered him the ideal operational conditions for his graphic work.

For Matthias Weischer, dealing with the various printing techniques means a new form of image creation. While as a painter he gradually builds up a picture on the canvas, layer by layer, using a strong, pasty application of paint, the printing techniques force him to have a finished picture concept beforehand, which can then only be produced indirectly through the various process steps with little opportunity for correction.

In addition to all the technical and artistic aspects, the turn to graphics is ultimately also an act of search and self-assurance for the young painter. The art world therefore waited with excitement for the first works. At the end of May, the results were presented to the public for the first time in the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig. The Kunsthalle Bremerhaven is now the second place where the public can get their own impression of the young artist’s new works.

A catalogue entitled Matthias Weischer has been published by Prestel in the “Kunstwerkstatt” series for the exhibition. As part of the exhibition, we are inviting you to a conversation between the author of the catalogue, the art historian Moritz Wesseler, and Matthias Weischer on October 5, 2011.

Curated by Dr. Kai Kähler.