Norbert Bisky
Works on Paper
German painter Norbert Bisky is returning to Galerie Daniel Templon this summer with a new and spectacular series of works on paper at the Impasse Beaubourg space. The artist is releasing his demons with a series of previously unseen watercolours and oil paintings on paper that play on the conflict between the life instinct and the death instinct.
Norbert Bisky’s figurative style of painting, conjuring up the socialist realism he experienced as a child in GDR, is striking in its use of shimmering colours and its apocalyptic visions. Peopled by beautiful young men, his work depicts ambiguous scenes that lie somewhere between natural catastrophe, battlefield and festivities.
Norbert Bisky likes to create a link between chaos and beauty. He combines elements taken from our contemporary hedonistic culture with reminiscences of past ideologies.
Norbert Bisky’s watercolours contrast with his oil paintings and seem to be totally disconnected from reality. Bodies inhabit a universe made up of sensations that are as joyful as they are morbid, but with no indication of space or time. The landscapes of this universe emerge thanks to the palette of colours, ranging from sensual pink to blood red and idyllic blue. Norbert Bisky is particularly fond of the technique that centres on spontaneity and the opportunity to be seized, in total harmony with the tension created by these Baroque dramas.
The artist
Norbert Bisky was born in 1970 in Leipzig, Germany. His treatment of landscapes and exploration of the portrait and narrative structure place him firmly in the tradition of great European painting. But Norbert Bisky's experiments with breaking down forms and with blocks of colour also place him on the borderline of abstract art. His figurative style of painting, conjuring up the socialist realism he experienced as a child in GDR, suggests both hedonism and chaos in its contemporary form.
