MARCEL EICHNER (GERMAN B.1977)
Hey Joe
2010
signed, titled and dated MARCEL EICHNER / 2010 (on the reverse)
gouache, acrylic and ink on canvas
canvas: 225 x 199.5 cm
frame: 228.5 x 203.5
framed
ARR

Literature:
Nicole Hackert, Marcel Eichner, Contemporary Fine Arts (ed), Berlin, 2010

Exhibited:
Berlin, Contemporary Fine Arts Galerie GmbH, Marcel Eichner 8 x Elmer, 6 October 2010 - 13 November 2010

Marcel Eichner was heavily influenced by German Expressionism, the aesthetics of which originated in the 1920s and are characterised broadly by depictions of distorted realities that encourage emotional responses. Eichner intends to represent daily scenes as they would seem in a world without social norms to constrain our most complex and repressed emotions. He is interested in capturing emotional responses - "not how things look or should be, but how they feel like."

The artist chooses to render spaces where he has developed memories and personal associations, generally in interior household settings. Through a dark imaginative lens, the artist reacts to the feelings and thoughts that result from being in a familiar surrounding. His early figurative works are characterized by an unconventional interplay of windows, doors, jagged lines, contrasting colors, and mundane objects. In this strange nightmarish fantasy, humans become monster-like forms and impressions of their own personal struggles.

Within the presented work, Eichner demonstrates how abstraction can create forms, figures and enhance emotion. In doing so, Hey Joe provides a critical examination of subconscious experiences and visualisations of memories and fantasies summoned by art. This wildly imaginary and distorted world, whether figurative or abstract, is reflective of our constant endeavor to come to terms with reality. They are visualizations of the artist's environment, memories and states of being - a mirror of his subconscious.

When asked to comment on how he presents motifs throughout his work, Eichner has said, “I wake up in a dream and think of the rest.” In Hey Joe, Eichner utilises abstraction to establish an uncanny narrative as the context of the work by embedding notable certainties. For example, the title of the piece, Hey Joe, alludes to the designation of a specific figure or person.

Exhibited
Berlin, Contemporary Fine Arts, Marcel Eichner 8 x Elmer, 6 Oct 2010-13 Nov 2010

Literature
Nicole Hackert, Marcel Eichner, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, 2010