Photo of Dirk Marwig in Santander, Spain with some of his new friends in 1990 taken by English photographer Hugh Schofield.
It was also at this time that he met his future ‘to be wife’, Paloma Sarbadhikari, a lovely, four year younger woman of Spanish and East Indian decent who grew up in Canada and Kolkata. They were married in Kolkata one and a half years later, returning to settle in Madrid, the city of their choice. Living on a tight budget and with the help of both parents, Dirk Marwig prepared his first one-man show in Madrid, which took place at the Dionis Bennassar Gallery in 1993. With an exiting and prolific new body of work he ventured off into the metaphysical and amniotic realm, making use of symbols, consumer logos in combination with inventive geometry, where reason and unreason co-existed in harmony. Not having a lot of money he would improvise and paint his stories and ideas; “making something beautiful out of discarded things that have a history”, as he describes it, i.e.: something wonderful was created on any kind of surface, which in turn dictated the content. An old winkled sheet of hand-made paper, a piece of battered plywood he found in the street or an old wooden ironing board he plucked from a dumpster would serve as the ideal surface onto which he would meticulously carry out his ideas. He would basically use anything that “spoke to him” and carried potential to express his messages. His largest piece for that show was a painting, an ‘oil on canvas’ he called “The Big Painting” (200cm x 155cm). He worked on it for 6 months, 8 to10 hours daily. This large painting turned into a magnificent, compilation or “map” of minutely detailed, delirious, mathematical and philosophical concepts and ideas with underlying poetic connections, presented in bright and clear Technicolor.
From top left to bottom right: Invitation to the 1993 Dionis Benassar Gallery show in Madrid with the “Big Painting” on the cover. Next a mid-section detail of” The Big Painting” Below that: 2 untitled paintings on plywood, which were found on the streets of Madrid Then: “Seelenflug” a painting on hand-made paper Last: The only existing photo of Dirk Marwig with the “Big Painting” scanned from an old photocopy
This painting, “The Big Painting”, was by far his most ambitious work to date. Beautiful, extreme and almost horrendous, it still remains unprecedented, to this very day. The “Big Painting” also served as the blueprint for the work (objects and drawings), which was to follow during the next ten years of his early career. This first showing of Dirk Marwig’s art in Madrid proved to be a big success, both economically and publicity-wise being featured in many Spanish newspapers and magazines like “El Pais” and “ABC”. Using this momentum and taking with him photos and newspaper clippings of the successful show in Madrid and the work previously done in New York, Dirk Marwig travelled to Frankfurt in order to find representation in Germany. He walked into one gallery only, the one he selected and deemed suitable to show his work. It was a beautiful, large, open space on the street level and on the main gallery-strip in downtown Frankfurt. The owner of the gallery, Nikolaus Fischer happened to be
present and Dirk Marwig confidently showed him the clippings and photographs. The meeting went well and after six months the German gallery owner contacted Dirk Marwig to invite him to show his newest work later that year in December of 1994. The show was called “Paintings, Objects and Drawings”. Here is the invitation from that show and a newspaper photo by the Frankfurter newspaper ‘Neue Presse’ from April 11th 1995 of gallery owner Nikolaus Fischer along side two objects and drawings by Dirk Marwig:
The show was well received and the press compared his work with the likes of Paul Klee and Joan Miro for lack of having anything new or other to compare it with. ‘Credit Suisse’ and the ‘Deutsche Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau’, two financial institutions became collectors of his work. Dirk Marwig and Nikolaus Fischer continued to work together over the next 14 years during which the artist turned down numerous offers from other galleries out of respect and loyalty to the man who gave him the first opportunity to show his work in Germany.
“House of Love” (Oil on canvas, 270cmx 180cm, Dirk Marwig1994) This large painting was sold to one of the 2 banks that collect Dirk Marwig’s work. This is the only existing image of it, taken from a Frankfurt newspaper clipping (Frankfurter Rundschau, Spring of 1995).
“Das Unstabile Haus” or “The Unstable House” (Oil and black chalk on thick drawing paper, dimensions unknown, Dirk Marwig 1994)
With each new show Dirk Marwig’s work evolved. The ideas introduced in his previous paintings were highlighted and elaborated on. The work grew more complex as the abstractions were now even more simplified lending them added purpose and meaning. This meant for the spectator that more dimensions and possibilities opened up and were made visible, the longer the painting or drawing was contemplated. It was work that never became ‘boring’. One always discovered something new. This was and continues to be the enticing and captivating aspect of Dirk Marwig’s art. Spartanic simplicity turned into a high form of sophistication. To illustrate this the following photos show the invitation for his next show at the Nikolaus Fischer Gallery called “Paper- Sculpture” from 1996. The gallery had now moved to a smaller space on the