Jan Pleitner

Mier Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new oil paintings by Düsseldorf-based artist Jan Pleitner.

Jan Pleitner’s loud, brash, heavily saturated canvases vibrate with energy. Often painted in a single sitting, Pleitner smears, wipes, scratches and squeegees oils over plastic-like surface that is really an overly-gessoed canvas. Like a freshly laid ice rink, his sleek surfaces allow for a multi-layered, zig-zagging exploration with paint that is equally chaotic and mysterious – a colorful abyss in which viewers can reflect and project one’s own subconscious.

The works shift one’s focus onto a different state of mind and visual perception. There is a self-aware exploration happening here that is half intuitive and half conceptual. The essence of the work is not about an anti-image, but rather the discovery of an unknown, or new, image, leaving a traditional form of the narrative behind without removing it completely.

Pleitner has said that within his practice, painting “is a transcript for the transition between ghost, matter, and time. The paintings are a discovery through intuition and experience, and their ultimate goal is to always make an advancing approach within this discovery.” One is brought to question: “Why?” and must relinquish comfort in the quotidian of daily life in order to find unknown perceptions.

The paintings are guided by simple, seemingly exhausted, systems such as perspective, foreground and background, light and dark, and color symbolism. There is a compression of time – the finite and the infinite are simultaneously at play and the performative urgency cannot be ignored. One painting might show an emotion, a perspective, an excerpt of a story, a complete story or even a random mix of things from inside its own universe. Time in relation to the act of painting is guided by subconscious instincts, creating a space in which time and thought are compressed in rapid action.

Ultimately, words are obstructive in Pleitner’s visual compressions of our fast-acting brains. Focus on the state of mind instead of ideas. Discover the unknown.

Jan Pleitner (b.1984, Oldenburg, Germany) graduated with an MA from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2010 and studied under Tal. R and Jorg Immendorf. Selected solo exhibitions include Natalia Hug, Cologne (2016 and 2014), Kerlin Gallery, Dublin (2016), Nanzuka Underground, Tokyo (2015), CFA, Berlin (2015), Ancient and Modern, London (2014), Michael Andersen, Berlin (2013), Stadtmuseum Oldenburg (2013), Förderpreis der Öffentlichen Versicherungen Oldenburg, Germany (2013), Neues Westdeutschland, Belin (2012) and Projekt Skagen 12, Denmark (2012). Pleitner’s work has previously been exhibited at Kerlin Gallery as part of the group exhibition Deep One Perfect Morning (2014). Pleitner lives and works in Düsseldorf.