From November 12, 2017 until January 14, 2018 gallery Eva Steynen.Deviation(s) presents new paintings by Aurélie Gravas and Johannes Ulrich Kubiak.

For the first time the gallery shows the two artists their work together. In their research of form and color Gravas and Kubiak explore the act of painting and it's possible media, other than oil on canvas. In Kubiak's aquarelles the compositions are joyful dances of pure watercolor with a touch of goauche. Gravas explores form and composition by using cut-outs and different media. For both artists the underlying figuration enables them to present painting for itself. Their use of material is different, but Gravas and Kubiak have a lot in common in their approach of the concept of painting. By putting their works together the exhibition aims to enforce their specific imaginary language out of these differences and similarities.

'What to paint?'/ 'Que peindre'?, was the question the French Philosopher J.F. Lyotard asked in 1988 and what it is that makes what seems so simple and basic into such an intense act in 'presence' and the question of matter, form and color.

Aurélie Gravas (°1977 FR, lives and works in Brussels), mooved in 2003 to Brussels after finishing her Master in painting at Marseille (FR). Her work has been shown in different solo and groups shows throughout France, Belgium and Switzerland. In her continues research of form and material she finds her inspiration at the modern masters. These inspirations allow her to explore more freely the figures and forms, using oil and different materials on canvas and cardboard. Since a few years she also started to make cut-outs from drawings and paintings. In her compositions she experiments with the three dimensional and the frame as a border to trespass. Gravas finds an enormous freedom in her use of material, in the reuse of themes her paintings become new assemblages and playful compositions where abstract and figurative cohabitate together in a slow and intensive balance act that makes the eye move.

www.aureliegravas.com

Johannes Ulrich Kubiak (°1961 D, lives and works in Berlin and Chemnitz) his first shows in and around Germany consisted of oil paintings. In his drive to explore other media in the research of depth and layers further than the surface Kubiak's work shifted between 1992 to 2002 from painting to photography, working with Ludwig Rauch under the artist duo name Kubiak & Rauch. As in his paintings he explored the transparency of layers and the use of different supports in the photographic process. These aspects of transparency and process are still present in Kubiak's aquarelles. As a basis for his oilpaintings and aquarelles Kubiak surches for interesting structures he finds in combining layers of his photographs of architecture, forms or people he made during his wanderings on his travels. The figure seems to disintegrate under the surface of the composition, leaving visible every brush stroke, one next to and over the other interfering and creating new relations of color. In a concentrated and slow process of transparent layers of colours the figurations fade into structure and vibrant color. In his latest works, out the white of the paper or canvas emerges each touch of bright color into a vibrating composition that shows this one present moment where everything holds perfectly together just before it collapses.

(website and CV : http://johannes-ulrich-kubiak.de/ - http://borssenanger.de/kuenstler/johannes-ulrich-kubiak/ )