Volkmar Jesiek: Bold Dreams

Volkmar Jesiek's dream-like artwork straddles the line between representation and untethered imagination. Jesiek's mixed-media pieces depict figures, with varying degrees of realism, set adrift amongst virtuoso feats of patternwork. A canvas may show a perfectly recognizable person swimming through water of only slightly heightened colors, or it may show ghostly, faceless silhouettes overwhelmed by monumental colors and lines. Sometimes a work shows completely abstract scenes, where swirls, smears, and translucent layers push and pull at each other to create compositional rhythms.

Jesiek makes great use of contrast, first in his riotous color choices and secondly in his use of texture. He picks surreal bright hues to create emotional atmospheres, and pairs them with stark black-and-white detail. His brushwork is varied and bold, and benefits from his ease with many different styles - inky splotches, dry brush, and fluid lines are all part of his repertoire, although the decalcomania technique is the determining factor of his work.

Jesiek was born in Viersen, Germany and currently lives in Braunschweig, Germany. In addition to painting, he is accomplished in sculpting, set design, landscaping, and interior design.

Exhibition Dates: December 3, 2016 – December 23, 2016

Reception: Thursday December 8, 2016, 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Gallery Hours: Tues-Sat 11-6

Gallery Location: 530 West 25th St, Chelsea, New York

Event URL: http://www.agora-gallery.com/artistpage/Volkmar_Jesiek.aspx  

Featured Artists:

Sensorial Perspectives

Volkmar Jesiek  |  Graciela Fortunata  |  Juan Salazar  |  Cesar Alvarez  |  Anna Des  |  Adam Craemer  |  Pierre Boisseau  |  Manoushak Azad  |  Mihalis Papakalodouka

About the Exhibition

Sensorial Perspectives: Experience of the Body

This December Agora Gallery presents Sensorial Perspectives, an exciting new collective exhibition that works to immerse the viewer, one physical sensation at a time. Five painters, two mixed-media artists, and one photographer offer work that challenge the traditional understanding of art as a purely visual medium. No fewer than four abstract artists are featured; they share a skillful use of bold colors and large-scale shapes but each differs in the emotional appeal to viewers. These painters show us the different ways color can shoot straight past the eyes to raise hairs on the skin and cause tingles beneath it. The exhibition's representational works also aim to make the viewer experience rather than look. One artist puts realistic figures against backgrounds of bubbling, exquisite clouds of reds and blues that communicate speed and movement. Another offers sharply contrasted, multicolor portraits that convey the presence of another person. The exhibition's photography show us the world from a human's eye point of view, with no more context and no more clarity than a person walking through would possess.