SHADOWS
by Michael Kucera

Exhibition Dates:
Thursday 1 November to Friday 30 November 2007
Venue:
Delfina, 50 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UD
Private View:
Tuesday 20 November 2007
Opening Hours:
Monday to Friday from 10am to 12pm / 3pm to 5pm

Michael Kucera’s series of sculptural relief paintings, Shadows, is a mesmerising and almost magical experience. Kucera brings simple, straight lines to life by twisting and folding each piece into a resin sculpture, allowing the linear pattern to leap from its two dimensional space and play with the ever-changing surrounding light. This creates a work of art that, despite its solidity, gives an animated and captivating experience to the viewer as the dynamic shadows cast by each protruding shape evolve throughout the day.

Originally from Germany, Kucera has been based in London since 1995. He was initially trained by the controversial founder of psychoanalytical painting, Rudolf Hausner, in Vienna. Hausner was a key player in Surrealism and Fantastic Realism during their peak around the time of the Second World War. Following this training, Kucera took a more traditional path, studying figurative painting before moving towards minimalist abstraction. Along this journey, he developed a style of painting in geometrical, linear patterns.

“I was always a painter but I needed to make things, to find a three-dimensional expression and develop a very personal and unique style, ” claims Kucera

’Shadows ‘ presents a significant development in Kucera‘s career with a vibrant new style and medium. These sculptural relief paintings are hand-crafted from a complex process using a resin fibreglass form, painted with a reoccurring pattern of straight lines, which curve, stretch and ripple into the three dimensions. The edges of each piece are adeptly carved out of wood to mirror the undulating surface.

“It‘s about making the impossible possible – not to represent something but to invent and discover an object that is completely different, absurd and unusual, ” says Kucera.

It is almost as though these works are hiding something, as if there is a mystery lurking behind their Shadows, sparking the imagination and creativity of the viewer. This interaction is where the exciting and fantastic element is most evident, alluding to the fantastical early influences of Hausner‘s Surrealism. Now more than ever, Kucera has found his very own language in which the viewer is engaged in an optical game of linear and three dimensional forms and patterns.