Artist: ANSELM REYLE

Anselm Reyle took an early interest in landscape design and music before finally homing in on painting and sculpture. Characteristic of his work are various found objects that have been removed from their original function, altered visually and re-contextualized. Reyle works in different media, utilizing strategies of painting, sculpture and installation and working in serial, structured work groups. The artist uses a vast and diverse group of materials taken from both traditional art and commercial milieus including coloured foils from shop window displays, acrylic medium and pastes, automotive lacquer, and useless everyday garbage taken from urban areas. By removing these materials from their contexts and masking their original function, Reyle varies the degree to which each retains its respective visual reference. Utilizing formulas of appropriation the work lets the viewer shift between moments of identification of individual elements within the work, and periods of alienation due to their new context. Even the exhibition and work titles are very often citations from different fields, such as song texts; they function as objets-trouvés of the artist´s repertoire. One of Anselm Reyle’s best known work series are his “foil paintings” – the highly celebrated abstract works that are created using foil arranged and installed in coloured Perspex boxes. Their shimmering materiality seduces the recipient´s eye and stimulates their sense of touch, at the same time the Perspex box denies any possibility of a tactile experience. The dynamic surface of these works emphasizes their object-hood and spatial presence, the fragile folded foil forms contrasting with their rigid geometry.