Stefan Heyer
BORN IN 1967 IN ESSEN, GERMANY
SPENDS HIS TIME BETWEEN HAMBURG, BARCELONA AND RURAL LOWER SAXONY
Stefan Heyer and his gestural abstracts are an exploration of histories, both personal and shared, and are inspired by pop culture, political issues, nature and postmodern alienation. Stefan’s works are extremely layered, as he drips paint, scrawls words on the canvas, and mixed mediums including oil and acrylic paints, crayon, pencil, marker, and digital photographs. Stefan obscures any tangible points of reference, enabling the viewer to discover new meaning in his works.
Stefan has exhibited his works in shows and art fairs across Europe in cities including Hamburg, Berlin, Barcelona, Genova, Vienna, and Brussels. His first solo exhibition was at Mono Gallery in Hamburg. He had two solo shows at Gudbergnerger in Hamburg. Most recently he took part in a group exhibition at Mash Gallery in Los Angeles in May of 2019. He took part in The Other Art Fair London in autumn 2018 and will show some his works at The Other Art Los Angeles in September of 2019.
Artist Statement
I set out to explore the vast territory between my personal West German, pop culture-embossed upbringing, political issues from past and present, history in general, and our postmodern alienation. With my style, I want to reach an essence and pureness and authenticity beyond superficial levels of meaning. I have a very clear imagination of the approximate. Working with opposites, I mix abstraction with the tangibility of the visible world.
My main motive is the search for a new beauty in the contradiction of our reality. As it is with a good poem, the poetical sound, the lyrical vibe, needs to ignite the reader. The semantic level can gradually get discovered. Ambiguities are to be tolerated and withstood – it should not be too comfortable. If I immediately know what’s going on, it is getting boring. A painting should remain a mystery.
