NEW YORK, NY.- Olsen Gruin is presenting Raw Vision, an exhibition of new collage-paintings by German artist Jens Einhorn, on view from January 10 to February 5, 2018, at 30 Orchard Street.
Einhorn’s body of work develops his interest in channeling the assertive energy of the urban periphery. These new works incorporate tarpaper cut out silhouettes layered starkly above a vibrant collage of fabric, acrylic, and spray paint. The gritty, plant-like forms allude to East Germany, whose barren city landscape Einhorn explored as a teenager.
The concrete jungle represents Einhorn’s wilderness, where leaves cover tarpaper rooves and blend with the colors of graffiti and rust. Describing his interests, Einhorn references the abandoned shelters and overgrown junkyards that exist between the urban and natural worlds. Like Einhorn’s canvases, these plots are spaces of collage and metamorphosis. Just as our personal memories give meaning to others’ discarded objects, Einhorn’s collages emanate suggestion and opportunity within this context.
Einhorn’s working method requires instinct, determination, and condition. Difficult to handle and cut, tarpaper resists intention; Einhorn writes that it “often demands its own way.” In some works, rhythmic territories of color give a spontaneous impression. In others, built-up layers of tarpaper attest to decisions accumulated, revisited, and rethought. This artistic practice parallels life in the period leading to “Deutsche Einheit”, where feelings of impulse and jeopardy are inherent in every decision.
Tensions between what is manmade and what is natural give force to Jens Einhorn’s vision of East Germany and present Berlin. Einhorn’s paintings harmonize design and intuition, motion and rest, freedom and control.
Jens Einhorn (b. 1980) graduated from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf as a Master Student with Professor Tal R, and lives and works in Berlin. Solo exhibitions include *TRACING REMAINS*, *VITA PARCOURS*, and We Are All We Have, all at DUVE Berlin, Germany; Electric Eyes, Luce Gallery, Turin; and Too Much Future, Bruch & Dallas, Köln. Group shows include Ornis A. Gallery, Amsterdam; G2 Kunsthalle Leipzig, Germany; Annarumma Gallery, Naples; the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples; and C. Rockefeller Center for the Contemporary Arts, Dresden, among others. Jens is represented by DUVE Gallery, Berlin.
