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until 08.10. | #0670ARTatBerlin | The JRGALLERY shows from the 16th September 2016 the exhibition LEGEND by the artist João Noutel.
João Noutel was born in 1971 in Porto and now lives and works in Lisbon. In Portugal, he already had a great number of solo and group exhibitions and was able to assert himself as a successful artist. The JRGallery is very pleased to present João Noutel in September with the exhibition LEGEND, which will be his first German solo exhibition.
João Noutel’s work is characterized by images of our culture: he works with images of advertising and movie, comic and animatic, consumption and everyday life. He removes them out of their original context, alienates and edits them and assembles them to a complete new whole. In tradition to the Pop art that’s how he makes the trivial and insignificant elements of our culture to the subject of his artwork. His works are both large- and small-sized and are characterized by an intensive color plus a simple and clear use of forms. The individual picture elements are two-dimensional and planar. Here, too, we can tell some similarities to the American art of the 1950s and 1960s.
For his upcoming solo exhibition LEGEND, João Noutel addresses the theme of a „legend“: What is a legend? And how can an artist paint or draw a legend? João Noutel shows us his own suggestion.
His artistic approach is a combination of new digital techniques and the traditional painting and drawing: Noutel creates his image motifs by hand, photographs them, and arranges them at the computer afterwards, until he gets his favored result. With the aid of a plotter, he prints his motifs on photographic paper, subsequently bonding them on MDF. In the end, the whole surface gets a glossy varnish by which his works become durable. But most notably they also get an almost factury-made effect by this varnish which is characteristic for Noutel’s artworks. Another feature of his work is the use of single picture elements: João Noutel rarely works with entire images – he rather makes use of cut-outs from popular pictures or at least of pictures we think we know. For his upcoming exhibition LEGEND, it’s the head of a well-known mouse: Mickey Mouse. Ever since the latest 1920s, Mickey Mouse is world-famous and one of the most noted characters of the Walt Disney World.
But is Mickey Mouse a legend?
A legend: a person who already received fame and recognition during his or her lifetime, which last beyond death. A legend: a story, a saga or a fairy tale about remarkable people, creatures and incidences.
Mickey Mouse is no human being neither is he a story, a saga or a fairy tale. But maybe he is a mix of these two “legends”. Nevertheless, he certainly is a very popular icon. And João Noutel makes use of the most eye-catching element of this icon – the head of the mouse –, combines it with a variety of other images from different contexts and creates completely new imageries of his own „legend“ in this manner.
Vernissage: Friday, 16th September 2016, 06:00 – 09:00 p.m.
Exhibition period: Friday, 16th September – Saturday, 08th October 2016
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Image caption: João Noutel, Minnie, 2016, Mixed media on cut out MDF, 120 x 108 cm
Exhibition João Noutel – JRGALLERY – Kunst in Berlin ART at Berlin
