MATTHIAS WEISCHER EXHIBITED AT THE SAATCHI GALLERY

Matthias Weischer
Egyptian Room

2001

Oil on Canvas

220 x 220cm
Matthias Weischer's dream houses defy all spatial logic; he makes architectural installations that can only exist in two
dimensions. Depicting a ceiling-less apartment, Egyptian Room removes the ambit between internal and external
space. Instead, each element imposes its own sense of order on each other: outside, palm trees and sand dunes
tower in geometric precision, while inside Matthias Weischer's meticulous grid gives way to its own organic confusion.
The floor melds inconspicuously with the counter, shelves and table tops tilt to high-seas angles, and objects such as
the basket sink below their supporting surfaces. Banality is ruminated as a perpetual labyrinth where obsession and
madness become the pursuit of wonder and delight.

Matthias Weischer
House

2003

Oil on Canvas

180 x 240cm
House operates as an antilogy: a painting that's a contradiction of its own expression. Subverting the expected
qualities of painterly rendition, Matthias Weischer invents an environment where each element adopts attributes
opposite to their character. Flowers in the foreground recede with the flatness of wallpaper, while rugged mountain
backdrops protrude with stylised sharpness. Hard-edged formalist tower blocks exceed planate limitation to create
believable sculptural volume, while details nearest in perspective float in non-descriptive nether-space. Smudges and
drips of pure abstract gesture should lead the eye directly back to the painting's surface; instead they create a
disorienting tiered perspective. Matthias Weischer creates a common urban scene as a surprise of improbable
construction, exploiting illusion to its ultimate possibility.

Matthias Weischer
Living Room

2003

Oil on Canvas

170 x 190cm
Matthias Weischer's paintings of interiors expose the architecture of painterly illusion. His rich surfaces contrast
geometric fields of hard-edged abstraction with highly rendered decorative details to create an eerie play between
flatness and 3D. Starting with a design of an empty room, Matthias Weischer builds his imagined locations layer upon
layer, each added element further pushing the boundaries of perceived space. Incongruous perspectives, dizzying
patterns and Escher-like visual riddles quietly allude to a sense of the uncanny. In Living Room, suburban normality is
infiltrated by an almost unnoticeable surrealism: shrubbery on the inside of the building, an impossibly flat piano and
a table that casts no shadow.

Matthias Weischer
Untitled 11

2003

Oil on Canvas

150 x 300cm
Matthias Weischer's composite paintings readily portray space as a surreal concept. In Untitled 11, Weischer creates
a scene of diametric character: a grotty alley is given the smooth lighting and design effects of an institutional interior.
Viewed over a railing, his set shuffles in and out of optical perspective. Shifting between representation and
abstraction, breeze blocks repeat in Op Art patterns; a wall mural is a self-contained painting within a painting. A
large white tower cuts through the canvas, a haywire scribble of spatial relief. Matthias Weischer off-sets this hard-
edged style with his organic treatment of the ground: thin layers of oil paint ripple with the translucence of water.
Plants and bricks suggest submersion, while the realistically rendered blankets float strangely on the surface.

Matthias Weischer
Untitled

2002

Oil on Canvas

102 x 120cm
In Matthias Weischer's Untitled, the artist constructs a claustrophobic room with fraudulent perspective. The airy
turquoise space is squashed between the heavy mauve planes of ceiling and floor; only a too-tall standing lamp
keeps them prised apart. The precariousness of the scene is repeated throughout: a dwarfed table teeters on
matchstick legs under the weight of a classical urn and striped sticks appear to stand on end, placed at deceptive
angles to the ground. Matthias Weischer emphasises the askance' effect through the patterning of the carpets,
tablecloth and wall hanging, each appearing out of turn in their layered spatial order.

Matthias Weischer
Familie 0-Mittag

2001

Oil on Canvas

190 x 240cm
Matthias Weischer's paintings explicitly show the falsification of their illusion. In Familie O-Mittag, Weischer doesn't
create a room, but rather a complex system of intersecting rectangles. Here, the floor, window, wall and hearth exist
as separate planes: the representative scene functions as a coincidence of their proximity. This geometric breakdown
is extrapolated further in the bricks, tiles, picture frames and plant pots, dissolving the image of a room into an
obsessive hallucination.

Matthias Weischer
Interior

2003

Oil on Canvas

75 x 96cm
Matthias Weischer's Interior sets up an ambience of corroded decadence. Here Weischer's formalist interests are
presented with more naturalistic qualities. Exploiting his media to its full potential, Weischer creates spatial illusion
through his application as well as composition: the heavy folds of the curtain are painted with concrete ballast, while
the ceiling writhes with liquid fragility. Weischer renders the receding wall with battered texture, the illusion of
movement gives way to a fanciful mural; a portal to a mystical landscape, incongruous with this dilapidated setting.