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until 18.07. | #2753ARTatBerlin | galerie burster presents from 6th June 2020 the exhibition SHINY DIRT by the artist Christian August. It is the first solo exhibition by the artist in the gallery.
His abstractly expressive colour compositions depict a play of intuitively and quickly set grey scales, pastel colour gradients and strict, monochrome surfaces.
Almost like a white noise, lies the diffuse noise of colours beneath and next to the monochrome surfaces, which sometimes act as a calming counterpart to the complex background noise. While in August’s earlier works this color noise usually moves in a scale of grey tones, overlaid by clearly defined areas in the radiant blue tone that is significant for him, other frequencies are now added, especially in his latest works with soft pastel tones and even loud red tones, making the noise appear sometimes soft and quiet, sometimes strong and intense.
In his latest works, August sometimes dispenses with monochrome colour surfaces – there he interrupts and superimposes the diffusely rustling worlds of colour by means of energetic, intuitive and above all spontaneous gestures alone.
Just as his works are created in rapid physical movement, they also remain in motion for the viewer: his worlds of colour shine and bubble, diffuse, organic and alternating between loud and soft, rough and smooth on the surface of the picture, and at the same time appear so ethereal that one wants to reach into the picture to try out where the colour haze ends and the material begins.
Christian August, TIME AND AGAIN, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 180 x 150 cm
August consciously accepts that the use of fast motion sequences also means getting involved with the coincidental: He is interested in finding beauty in banality, despite or precisely because of spontaneity, whether in painting, his wall collages, or his field of inspiration, the city.
It’s worth taking a look at August’s Instagram Stories: he often captures random impressions of urban scenes, fleeting snapshots that can be read like a digital sketchbook and demonstrate his delight in coincidence and aesthetics. He makes the sublime visible in everyday life and uses it to form subtle quotations which, like his colour worlds, oscillate between spontaneity and complexity.
Thus his works are closely related to our current reality of life – for us, too, the meaning, aesthetic statement or simply the beauty of a moment is formed in a very individual, spontaneous way. This makes August’s works so fascinatingly related to our own being.
Christian August (*1977 in Halle (Saale), Germany) studied at the Burg Giebichtstein Kunsthochschule Halle as a student of Gerhard Schwarz. Under his alias KID CASH, August has been active as an urban artist since the 1990s. He is founder and member of the artist group KLUB7, founded in 1998. In 2017 he received a scholarship from the Kunststiftung Sachsen-Anhalt. August lives and works in Berlin.
Soft Opening: Saturday, 6th June 2020, 12:00 – 8:00 pm
Exhibition period: Saturday, 6th June – Saturday, 18th July 2020
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Exhibition Christian August – galerie burster | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
