Udo Noger, Fassbender Gallery, Chicago - Me Waters

Udo Nöger: Me Waters

Fassbender Gallery, Chicago

May 4 - June 2, 2001

Fassbender Gallery presents Me Waters, a body of paintings and drawings by German artist Udo Nöger. In these newest artworks, the artist continues his ethereal and dreamy investigation of the human figure and landscape. In a palette that is deceptively simple (but in reality contains a vast tonal range), Udo Nöger portrays shadows, and shadows of shadows. Working with many layers of translucent and gauzy fabric, the artist creates scrims that owe much to stage design and theatrical lighting. He overlays canvases of varying density, so that the surrounding light may pass through it again and again; bouncing back and forth and finally out to the viewer. In this way, these pictures contain and give off a tremendous amount of luminosity. By laying and overlaying stretched layers of canvas, gauze and muslin, the artist traps light so that we may view it at a more leisurely pace.

From a distance, Udo Nöger’s canvases appear to be blank. They are white on white. As the viewer draws closer, ghost images begin to come into view. Figures and disembodied heads hover among the shadows. It is these human silhouettes cut out of the canvas that allow light to move in and out of the paintings. The artist additionally soaks the canvases in mineral oil to make them even more translucent in spots. In this way, the artist retains the barest hint of a human presence in these highly abstracted works. These paintings and drawings seem to bear the imprint of people, rather than directly portraying them. They are afterimages. We are unsure whether they are contained within our eyes, or physically present before us.

At the same time, Fassbender Gallery’s Project Room features a group exhibition of new works by gallery artists.

FASSBENDER GALLERY

835 W. Washington, Chicago, IL 60607

www.fassbendergallery.com

Mario Reis, Fassbender Gallery, Chicago - From Nature to Abstraction

Mario Reis: From Nature to Abstraction

Fassbender Gallery, Chicago

October 20 - November 25, 2000

Fassbender Gallery's Project Room presents From Nature to Abstraction by German conceptual artist Mario Reis. Calling the final product of his artistic output 'Nature Watercolors', this artist has travelled for many years throughout the world, seeking out rivers in which to complete his ongoing artistic project. The artist floats stretched two-foot square canvases in various natural bodies of water for up to three weeks. Slowly, sediment is deposited, minerals are soaked up and pollutants settle out of the surrounding water. After collecting these canvas 'traps', the artist unstretches the works and freezes interesting results with spray adhesive.

The end results of all this process are ghostly, ethereal and often beautiful. The panels are displayed in grids to heighten their minimal qualities and draw attention to their relative color saturations. While listing the origin-river on each panel, the artist downplays any environmentalist connotations, choosing instead to highlight purely visual and sensual aspects of these artworks.

Nonetheless, by drawing attention to these quiet, earthy and restful palettes, Mario Reis has no choice but to draw attention to notions of the natural world and Arcadian splendor. Especially when viewed in an urban gallery environment, these works serve to remind the viewer of all that he or she is missing. Besides the generic 'natural' surroundings they conjure up, they additionally hint at all the exotic places their author has been. Much like the always popular travelogue, they allow us to vicariously share in Mario Reis's extensive journeys. These monochromatic and naturally pigmented artworks give concrete evidence of the endless ebb and flow of life that surrounds us all.

FASSBENDER GALLERY

835 W. Washington, Chicago, IL 60607

www.fassbendergallery.com

T.L. Solien, Fassbender Gallery, Chicago - Innocence Transfigured

T.L. Solien: Innocence Transfigured

Fassbender Gallery, Chicago

October 20 - November 25, 2000

Fassbender Gallery presents Innocence Transfigured, a new body of work by Midwestern painter T.L. Solien. Here, the artist continues his investigation of the inner life of self-portraiture. While employing Pop imagery as a starting point, Solien as an artist is almost impossible to pin down. He borrows and incorporates influences from all spheres of his life experience and knowledge. Utilizing compositional techniques from classic portraiture, Solien's 'sitters' nonetheless transgress all rules of decorum. Starting off as light-hearted, almost vacuous Pop characters from advertising and cartoons, they quickly veer off into the realm of the macabre. They transmogrify before our very eyes from cute and cuddly girls and puppies into horned goats and cursed wraiths. More than this, the flesh and substance of these characters has a tendency to melt and vaporize into pure brushwork and painted surface. Solien obliterates and overpaints until the space of his picture planes becomes claustrophobic and unhealthy.

Throughout all this, however, T.L. Solien retains his sense of humor and wonder at all that life brings his way. Admittedly autobiographical in his output, the artist presents grave situations, but in ambiguous and universal fashion. Despite mystical and paganistic titles and vertiginous, kaleidoscopic settings, these paintings address normal middle class life in Middle America in the present day. They hold up the artist's life as an example of the soap opera we are all living. With a cast of characters that frequently resurface and, no doubt, represent specific people in the life of the artist, these artworks are strangely familiar. They are classic examples of the power of satire to instruct and draw us all together.

FASSBENDER GALLERY

835 W. Washington, Chicago, IL 60607

www.fassbendergallery.com