9.6.-20.8.2011 (*15.7.-20.8.2011 by appointment only)

Marius Lüscher focuses mainly on abstract paintings. With a paintbrush, he adds one thin layer of oil paint over another to create fascinating compositions featuring a flow of wet, transparent applications as well as color gradients. As lines meander and forms dissolve, the surface becomes a delicately created, pseudo-organic structure. With the aid of color stamps he erases and retouches, making his works look as if they were composed through sheer happenstance. The painter refers to these as coincidently ‘drawn works’. The white background keeps the strong shades grounded, yet allows them space to ‘breathe’. The formations are gently composed, and are prone to surprise through their unusual compositions. For once ‘Untitled’ is not an empty term, as Lüscher’s works encourage myriads of possible associations in the viewer.

His monochrome or semi-colored paintings stand alone as an independent group of work, featuring geometrically structured color-fields, in which definite forms are grouped with different image areas. By using impasto, he creates fascinating picture worlds whose play of color respond to the changing light conditions. These black and white paintings, in which the entire canvas is covered, literally draw the viewer into the picture. His most recent works consist of simple crosses, which on the one hand seem somewhat similar, and yet on the other appear quite different. Once again the artist seeks a spontaneous-looking constellation, which – upon closer scrutiny – manifests itself slowly. His works ‘breathe’ though the tight corset of geometry, celebrating loudly and clearly the freedom of constellations.

Bernhard Bischoff, 2009/2011