Ulrich Pester

Hands, espresso makers, toothpaste, clock hands, a shirt... snippets of a small, manageable world. These are reliable objects that belong to a home. But here, the toothpaste displays a rough mimicry, the clock hands prefer to lounge around instead of structuring the day, and the shirt is missing a pocket (or is it the other way around?). The casual espresso maker would rather sip the espresso itself, then lie listlessly in bed, overwhelmed by it all.

The view of the mountain is essentially a view of the movie screen. A fake, neither climbable nor conquerable; one can only slip down or walk in front of it. And hope that what comes next is good entertainment. Ulrich Pester's world is beautifully chaotic. Nothing does what it’s supposed to do or what it was made for. Nothing serves humanity in its function anymore. You can't even get a coffee out of it. Even one’s own hands form a weary “Z,” accomplishing nothing today.

(Natalie Dargatz, 2015)

At the heart of his artistic practice lies the search. Ulrich Pester is focused on the ongoing process from which independent visual forms emerge. Ideas for his subjects can be found everywhere: in everyday encounters with film and the internet, but also in his own drawings or observations in daily life, which can serve as starting points for his works. The hidden pictorial potential in banal things develops its own dynamics and autonomy through subtle twists during the painting process. His works are convincing in their craftsmanship with formal clarity.

Far from committing to a single style or method, Pester continually discovers new approaches in his painterly explorations. Accordingly, his new works are also varied and surprising in their visual findings. Alongside abstract, figurative, and drawn subjects, his motifs include trompe-l'œil effects, art historical references, ironic wordplay, or subtle visual jokes.

(Miriam Walgate, 2015)