05 Sep Ghost driver, or the crowned anarchist

Source Credit:  Content and images from Wall Street International Magazine by .  Read the original article - https://www.meer.com/en/82545-ghost-driver-or-the-crowned-anarchist

The mystical scenes of painter Oliver Bak unite the spirits of the past and present.
Drawing from fiction and the real, mythology and life, and the tangible and the
subconscious, he constructs enigmatic narratives by conflating different fragments of
reality. Bak’s pictorial worlds are propelled by constant synthesis and anchored in a
deep understanding of the medium’s history. His mottled brushwork and magnetic use
of colour evoke the dreamlike paintings of Symbolist, Surrealist and Nabi painters.
Plants seem to sprout from the surface of his canvases and empyrean figures emerge
from between leafy areas and flecks of light, breaking down spatial categories. Monika
Sprüth and Philomene Magers are pleased to present Bak’s first exhibition at the
Berlin gallery, marking the Danish artist’s debut show in Germany.

Bak’s new body of work surveys the intersections of beauty and horror, exploring how
the inherent duality of Dionysus’ nature—the god of vegetation, fertility, and a symbol
of death and resurrection—can be captured. Suitably, Bak looks to the myths
surrounding the anarchist child emperor Heliogabalus for inspiration. Guided by an
1888 Victorian painting by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema that shows the ‘wicked’ Roman
emperor smothering his guests to death in a shower of rose petals, as well as by the
eccentric novelised biography of the third-century ruler written by French poet
Antonin Artaud in 1933, Bak revives the romantic theme of beauty versus the
inevitability of death and decay embedded in the natural world’s cycle of seasons. The
tale—filtered through centuries of ideals and morals—of a short scandalous rule
between riches, butchery, sexual excess, and decadence is translated into works
exuding an equivocal and uncanny atmosphere.

In a lengthy process that takes months to years, he conjures ghostly fauna and figures
that seem to haunt his works. The artist evolves his surfaces as highly textured
topographies: thick layers of wax and impasto areas are reworked multiple times.
Adding and subtracting paint, he sometimes upends his brush, forsaking its bristles for
the wooden end. Slowly materialising with each mark and gesture, Bak gives life to
characters from his imagination. Occasionally, he erases or destroys his creatures,
capturing only their subliminal essence. For his supports, he often utilises vintage
fabrics that amplify his moody colour palette. His faint drawings are preparatory
sketches for the works in oil or, in some cases, stand-alone works developed
independently from his painting practice. He deviates from his familiar process of subtraction and addition by using his fingers to smudge the graphite, creating depth in
apparition-like, even eerie, images.

Bak’s paintings hide more than they show, their layers on layers of paint and
references combining into deep repositories of emotions. At first glance, Bak’s images
elicit unqualified pleasure in response to the beauty of the blossoms, delicate flora and
foliage of the trees. But just as the pink petals in Alma-Tadema’s The roses of
Heliogabalus conceal its violent subject matter, underneath Bak’s vegetation loom
disturbing shadows full of ambiguity—injecting each work with a foreboding quality.

Resisting the idea of the past, present and future as a linear progression of events,
Bak’s re-imagining of myths let time collapse. The works’ many layers provide a space
for contemplation and hint at an undefinable interiority that is absolutely and resolutely
human, ultimately enabling the viewer to perceive the invisible.

Born in 1992 in Denmark, Oliver Bak lives and works in Copenhagen. Recent Solo
Exhibitions include Caves in the Sky, Cassius & Co, London (2023) and Sick with
Bloom, ADZ, Lisbon (2022).

Source Credit:  Content and images from Wall Street International Magazine by .  Read the original article - https://www.meer.com/en/82545-ghost-driver-or-the-crowned-anarchist