The colors compress themselves on the canvas, tight and loud. They are frenzied and excited, yet gentle and curious. It is particularly difficult to separate painter Ál Varo Tavares d’Guilherme from his work. The artist, born in Angola in 1992, calls his distinctive painterly style Neo Brut. It refers to a reinterpretation of Art Brut – the art of autodidacts and outsiders that was established by a very important figure among the free spirits: Jean Dubuffet. D’Guilherme’s first major Berlin solo exhibition opens tomorrow (27.10.2023) at the Dittrich & Schlechtriem gallery on Mitte’s Linienstrasse. It’s a great idea for when the days are getting shorter and shorter: D’Guilherme’s massive oil colors draw curious passers-by into the illuminated basement of the exhibition space like light attracts moths, sucking the viewers into broken motifs and wild strokes. The city, life and suffering spread out and smear on the canvases. D’Guilherme draws from experience and feeling. The works defy interpretation, convention, and expectation; instead, they throw themselves into the world with such force that they continue to reverberate behind closed eyelids for a long time. “No church wild” is the name of the exhibition, which will be on view until 09.12.2023. Perhaps after your visit you will arrive at the same conclusion: that sometimes you don’t have to separate the artist from the artwork at all.
Text: Hilka Dirks / Photos: Jens Ziehe / Credit: Ál Varo Tavares d’Guilherme
Dittrich & Schlechtriem, Linienstr.23, 10178 Berlin–Mitte; map
Ál Varo Tavares D’Guilherme “No church wild” until 09.12.2023 Mon–Sat 11–18h. Opening 27.10.2023 18–20h.
@dittrichschlechtriem
@al__varo___
