There are occasions,though very few, when two or more artists hold a joint exhibition, sharing the same gallery or museum and the same exhibition title. In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve seen anything like it.
The Economic Society of Friends of the Province of Málaga has two exhibition spaces, and usually both are occupied by the same artist. On this occasion, however, two German artists are exhibiting, with works that differ greatly from one another in terms of colour, technique and subject matter, yet under the same exhibition title: Let’s see what happens.
I don’t have a particular preference for starting my tour of the exhibitions in a specific gallery; rather, I go with how I feel at the time. Today I’m bringing you the first exhibition, by the German artist Sebastian Gessenharter. He was born in Passau in 1988, studied art and art history, and later studied painting at the State Academy of Fine Arts. He then returned to his hometown, where he now practises his profession.
As is always the case in galleries and museums, there’s plenty of information available, whether in explanatory leaflets or on the walls, about the exhibitions currently on display, and this time was no exception.
In this instance, the exhibitions are part of an artist exchange programme with Germany, a cultural twinning between Málaga and the artist’s hometown, Passau.
The artist focuses on plein air painting; he mainly paints landscapes or cities and villages in the distance. In my view, this form of painting is excellent: you have the subject you are going to paint right in front of you and you capture a moment of the day whilst you are painting, a scene of the place, as if you were painting a photograph, but live.
The light shifts as the hours pass; the colours in broad daylight are brighter, and I believe that painting outdoors affords a different kind of freedom compared to being in a studio or an indoor room.
His works blend vegetation and architecture in a unique form of expressionism that verges on abstraction. It is figurative, realistic painting, combining his observation of what he sees whilst outdoors with his imagination. It invites reflection.
None of his works were titled, nor was there any reference to the technique used, but I believe he mainly uses watercolours, although there is also a mixture of acrylics and possibly oil. One of the things I liked most was not only that he painted outdoors and depicted the landscapes he saw, but also the rich colours of his paintings; they shine and there is a great deal of contrast in those colours.
The emphasis is generally on nature and, in particular, on human beings, in terms of subject matter, and he achieves this, as I said before, through almost abstract figurative art, altering reality, as his paintings are not hyperrealistic.
My favourite works from the whole collection are the fourth and the ninth: the first because of the presence of walls or ruins and the tree as the central focal point, and the ninth because I seem to make out Málaga Town Hall amongst the greenery, as if he were painting from the Alcazaba castle.
It isn’t specified where these works were painted, so the imagination can run wild, just as mine did when I saw them. There aren’t usually many works of this sort, and by that I mean watercolours, so I’ve really enjoyed them. If you have a favourite piece, I’d love to hear about it.
Thank you very much for joining me today; I wish you all a very happy Sunday. See you soon. Amonet.
All photographs are my own.
