Martin Assig
paintings, drawings
9 May – 7 June 2009
In the work of Martin Assig (1959) a combination of corporality and spirituality is often noticeable: the body is represented as the vulnerable house of the soul. Recently, Martin Assig made a series of drawings of faces and hearts with the title Beute (booty). This booty consists of the motives the artist has made himself familiar with. Heads and hearts are part of it.
The heads have been represented in broad lines, in a schematic almost primitive way.
The faces are totally covered with hair, the eyes are closed and the mouths held wide open. Sometimes words have been written on the teeth, such as kein Hunger (no hunger), alles alles (all, all), warum essen (why eat), indicating a sort of warding off of calamity. Below the hearts are texts like Du warst von Anfang an dabei (you were there from the start), or Werde ich es merken wenn es geschieht (will I notice when it happens), which refer to love and death.
The drawings were made in charcoal on transparent paper, on which subsequently wax was ironed in from the back. This gives the drawings a warm, almost painterly character.
In his paintings Martin Assig also uses wax, which is mixed with pigment. For several paintings he used existing canvases of amateur painters, which he partly painted over with ornamental patterns. These are composed of several round cores, from which lines are extending across the surface, like energy sources emanating radiation.
Till May 14th Martin Assig has a solo exhibition in Spain at the Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos (CAB), titled La Presa/Die Beute (The booty). It comprises works from 1995 till 2008, including a large series of faces, new versions of these are now to be seen in the gallery. www.cabdeburgos.com