In Berlin Halloween should be in February, when you’re so sick of winter that even the first rays of sunshine can’t chase away those ubiquitous mood clouds and their ghosts. Berlin’s architecture hardly helps matters as you climb up the stairs of Ernst-Reuter-Platz underground station – but do so at dusk, and your gaze will immediately fall on the ground floor windows of the former IBM building. There, away from the traffic and behind the glass, you see brushstrokes on canvas. Resolutely and spontaneously, the strokes shine on the faces of passers-by with viscosity and lightness, offering a kind of mystical firmness. Curiosity and amazement stop you in your tracks: you have to go inside the gallery. Opened in 2018 by Stavros Efremidis and Tom Woo, the art space in question – Efremidis – is now a permanent fixture on the Berlin scene. The gallery’s current exhibition by American painter Tom Holmes is called Razor Blade Candy (until 06.04.2023), and it proves how deserved the institution’s rapidly-gained reputation is.
Holmes’s works captivate you with a unique blend of style, motif and craftsmanship. They wander between baroque still life, photorealism and pop, but are always connected by the placement of light. The art is as American and gentle as the painter himself, yet always full of innovation and keen observation. On the walls, screaming children in Halloween costumes look at you. In another room, you stumble over a milk container full of Fruit Loops before your gaze lands on painted textiles, lush folds and uncanny still lifes saturated with sensuality and viscous colors. What better way to scare away the February ghosts….
Text: Hilka Dirks / Photos: Eric Tschernow
Efremidis, Ernst-Reuter-Platz 2, 10587 Berlin–Charlottenburg; map
Tue–Sat 11–18h
Tom Holmes: Razor Blade Candy runs until 06.04.2023
