Paradise NOW! On Artificial Wilderness and Botanical Enclosures in Painting

#finearts #painting

This five day intensive workshop explores the possibilities of developing pictorial spaces within the medium of painting by taking Berlins Botanic Garden as a starting point for eutopian and dystopian ideas of a contemporary paradise.

The idea of the Garden of Eden as a botanical hortus conclusus is certainly one of the oldest utopian concepts of humanity. With its unattainable and ideal state it functions as projection space of fictitious origin as well as refuge or even sanctuary. Its ambiguous vision combines uncontrollable and even threatening sides of nature with cultivated and human-made aspects of wilderness, which finally lead us to one of the most central and existential topics of the present day: our undoubted conflicting relationship to nature. The ambivalence between floral formations and staged proliferations can be best experienced in the large tropical greenhouses of the European metropolises, to whose hustle and bustle they have always been an alternating concept.

This is why the practical seminar takes Berlins Botanic Garden in Dahlem as a metaphorical and practical starting point, as an artistic laboratory for contemporary pictorial explorations.

The distinct contrast between construction and growth, between geometry and encompassing chaos offers an ideal reference for visual ideas between eutopia and dystopia, between idyll and threat.

The seminar focuses on the individual artistic exploration of the topic and the development of unique pictorial ideas. The painterly approach can be both playful and systematic, drawing related strategies are as welcome as painting based collage-techniques.

Practical exercises on the construction of pictorial spaces complement the individual work and alternate with reflective phases and art historical impulses. A visit to Gemäldegalerie Berlin will contextualize the topic within the depth of art history.

Schedule

Day 1 – Introduction to the seminar, excursion to Botanic Garden Berlin,
graphic and photographic studies of floral phenomena and artificial wilderness

Day 2 – Painting studio at UdK Berlin, sketchbook review, drawing and painting exercises, development of individual image ideas and approaches

Day 3 – Painting studio at UdK Berlin,  excursus: the construction of pictorial spaces, individual artistic practice

Day 4 – Gemäldegalerie Berlin, excursion into the history of painting: paradisiac gardens and the construction of space

Day 5 – Painting studio at UdK Berlin, extended painting practice, presentation of the works,
final colloquium

Knowledge requirements

Basic drawing skills

Equipment requirements

Sketchbook, drawing tools, brushes; Acrylic paint, tape and paper will be provided and are included in the course fee

Matthias Moravek
When nature becomes form.

Matthias Moravek’s paintings are an intensive and playful analysis of content, form and colour, exploring the wide range between abstraction and figuration.

In his recent works he draws inspiration from natural phenomena such as clouds, vulcanoes, forests and jungles and their cultural perception. The artistic appropriation of visual worlds is as important to his approach as scenic constructions of nature. His work includes sculptures, drawings, videos and works in public space, all directly derived from painting.

In 2007 he graduated form UdK Berlin after studying fine arts at Staatliche Kunstakademie Karlsruhe and UdK Berlin. Since 2005 his work was shown in national and international exhibitions in galleries, museums and project spaces and received scholarships and grants for working and exhibiting in Istanbul, Dakar (Senegal), LA and Mexico City among others. His teaching experience includes several lectureships at UdK Berlin for interdisciplinary artistic practice.

www.matthiasmoravek.de