Michael Bauer
Basho’s Friends
March 10 – 31, 2007
Opening Saturday, March 10, 6-9pm
Jack Hanley Gallery is pleased to announce the first US solo exhibition of the work of Michael Bauer: Basho’s Friends. Born in Erkelenz, Denmark in 1973, Bauer studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Braunschweig, and in 2002, co-founded the exhibition space BROTHERSLASHER Cologne with Tim Berresheim. Bauer’s paintings appear both intuitively spontaneous and carefully contrived, where haphazard forms emerge with playful sophistication, balancing between organic aberration and whimsical design.
For his debut in San Francisco, Bauer will present a series of paintings reminiscent of the bizarre anthropomorphic portraits of 16th century painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, where figurative composites are suggested through abstraction and design. Seemingly impulsive drips and washes are arranged in an innate manner to create grotesque and distorted bodily forms. Bauer uses the qualities of abstract painting to deviate from the classical standards of representational portraiture, and consequently offers deformity as a platform for indisputable beauty.
Michael Bauer has had solo exhibits at Hotel in London, and Galerie Hammelehle and Ahrens in Cologne. Bauer’s work has also been included in the exhibitions Figure-Five Position at Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Michael Bauer and Steffie Popp at Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Rotterdam, and at Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles. Bauer currently lives and works in Cologne.