Materie | Antimaterie
October 8 – October 30, 2015
Opening hours: Mon - Thu // 12 - 6 PM
Vernissage: Thu, October 8 // 7 - 9 PM
Finissage: Fri, December 30 // 7 - 9 PM
The visual world of Cologne painter Michael Sistig (*1982 in Bonn) is imaginative and at times surreal. One encounters landscapes and seascapes filled with figures and stories amidst expressive, gestural color gradients that evoke distant worlds or even the primordial soup. These are concrete narratives that the artist conjures without fully revealing them. The viewer is invited – indeed, encouraged – to let their interpretations and associations flow freely. The compositions, reminiscent of dream scenes, science fiction, surrealism, or the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, utilize isolated scenes while simultaneously incorporating elements from various epochs and styles, including gestural abstraction. Sistig combines themes from classical literature, psychology, mythology, and art history with fragments of contemporary reality. He explores fundamental questions in his works: What defines humanity? What role does humanity play in the grand scheme of things? How much or how little is needed to live? The artist has repeatedly examined the latter through personal experiences during his travels. For instance, he questions the role of technology and science as a substitute for religion, the destruction of the environment, and the isolation of individuals in today’s society. All of this is done without a didactic moralizing tone.
“Materie | Antimaterie” points to the dualities of life – the interrelationships between the organic and the inorganic, between the micro and the macrocosm, between chaos and order, between actual and virtual reality.
Michael Sistig studied painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Albert Oehlen and Peter Doig, becoming one of Doig's master students. In 2013, he was an Artist-in-Residence at ESMoA – El Segundo Museum of Art, Los Angeles. In 2014, his monumental painting “M-Theorie” was presented as a solo exhibition at Fuhrwerkswaage in Cologne-Sürth in collaboration with Kirschenpflücker e.V. Immediately following his exhibition at Daab Salon, his latest works – including new sculptures – will be shown in a solo exhibition at Aki Gallery in Taipei.