Dargas Healing Beauty

january 2018

mike dargas

mike dargas healing beauty

healing beauty

operagallery.com

2017-CouvertureDEF_MikeDargas-OG-HongKong.indd 2

06/12/2017 18:40

preface

Born in 1983 currently living and working between his native Cologne and Los Angeles, Mike Dargas represents a quintessential contemporary artist whose style reflects a fusion of classical technique with the aesthetics of the digital age.

Entirely self-taught, Dargas’ technical and stylistic approach to painting depicts a holistic absorption of the variety of artistic mediums and crafts that he has practiced. From composing large-scale chalk drawings as a child, to carpentry and his time as a tattooist, Dargas’ accomplished work contains elements of each medium.

In this series of works ‘Healing Beauty’, these themes come to the forefront in his exploration of fragility and the feminine aspects of identity. The composition of Dargas’ portraiture presents an underlying interest in the covering or coating of the skin or the figure, by liquid or material. The lifelike element can be seen within the pose of the sitters, often in movement, with drips suspended in time. Thus, the paintings, resemble the photographic medium capturing the ephemeral beauty. As Mike Dargas says, “My paintings are trying to catch an emotional snapshot and are trying to evoke a certain feeling to the viewer”.

Opera Gallery is delighted to collaborate with Mike Dargas’ for his first solo show in Asia and we look forward to presenting the promising artist’s latest works in Hong Kong.

Gilles Dyan Founder and Chairman Opera Gallery Group

Sharlane Foo Director Opera Gallery Hong Kong

3

interview

You were accepted at 11 years old to an art school, in a class for adults. How was this experience significant for you – both personally and professionally?

Back then I was not aware of being the only child amongst adults. I was able to join this class for a year and only remember how much I loved it.

Can you describe your very first painting and your progression until this day?

I started painting in my early childhood and can not remember my very first painting. But I know that it opened a whole new world to me. Thanks to my mother’s support I discovered the great works of Salvador Dalí, Caravaggio, HR Giger, Gottfried Helnwein and others who became influential examples and my inspiration until today.

Professionally my first work was ‘The Ecstasy of Gold’ (2014). Although I have started painting before 2014, this particular piece feels like my first painting as it has started my artistic career.

Does your earlier success as a tattoo artist influence your painting today?

My whole life I have been sketching, drawing and painting. Tattoo art gave me a chance to do what I loved for a living. As a tattoo artist, I focused on realistic and surrealistic portraits already and therefore it became a major part of my artistic self studies.

Old masters such as Dalí, Caravaggio and HR Giger inspire your work. What do you think about their legacy and the value of art in history?

Caravaggio and Dalí were the reason why I focused on realism. The Old Masters were pioneers and visionaries of their time. I love their works and have admired them since I was a child. I still feel connected to them in my work and try to build a bridge from traditional to modern painting.

5

You have a very unique hyperrealistic style, composed of large-scale, oil on canvas portraits. One of their most visible features is the depiction of different liquids that evoke the senses not only visual but also tactile and others. Is it a way of constant and essential experimentation?

Let´s say it is realism playing with elements of hyperrealism and photography. And yes, I absolutely enjoy experimenting with my motifs and techniques and am constantly aiming to develop both.

The whole liquid series started in an experimental shooting in 2014 with the first honey piece. I was searching for a material that could cover a specific ground without hiding what is underneath. I was very fascinated by honey as a liquid material and it became the base element of this new series.

In which way do you combine your painting work with photography? Which kind of photographic characteristics do you adopt the most on your paintings?

When I started using liquids for the first time it was also a premiere to use photo shooting as part of my painting. Adding photography to my work helped me to catch the right moment of model and liquid blending into each other. At the end of this first honey shoot my studio was a mess... This was the foundation of my ‘Healing Beauty’ series.

Are you aware that a part of your works can be shocking for being sexually explicit? How do you respond to this perception?

Blame it on the Old Masters. But seriously: after focusing on faces for years I was curious about the effect of the human body. And several works are more or less explicit. I guess it is a question of perspective.

Is eroticism an inherent part of your works? Is it something you try to showcase?

Some call it eroticism, others sensuality or aesthetics. To me it is about the beauty within every personality or moment.

Painters like Richard Phillips also paint suggestive portraits of women, but are reintroduced in a historic or pop-iconic context. Your paintings stay more anonymous, outside of time. Could you explain this choice of the lack of clue about the scene or the model behind your paintings?

My art mainly deals with the emotional world. Therefore, I don´t paint concrete imagery. All of my paintings are trying to catch an emotional snapshot and aim to evoke a certain feeling in the viewer.

Your works are mainly portraits frozen in time. There is a strong sense of stillness in your works, like the calm before the storm. Can you describe why and how you have chosen to capture this essence?

It is true, my paintings capture a snapshot of the moment. Like you said ‘a calmness’ within a moment to catch the emotion behind it. If the viewer has the impression to see a glimpse of soul in my paintings I would be more than happy.

The Ecstasy of Gold, 2014

What do you look for on the faces you choose to paint? Is there a specific reason why you paint mostly women? What is your relationship with your models? Is it something very fast paced or do you try to establish a long term and more personal connection?

Faces are a mirror of our soul. My art is also very personal and reflects my current state of mind. So I use portraits to reflect emotions and personal stories. So my decision for a face is more based on a feeling than on the relation to it.

I remember an early series which was quite male, dark and destructive. It dealt with inner conflicts and anger. Whereas the following ‘Healing Beauty’ series with honey and other liquids focused on feminity, beauty and fragility. The additional liquids in this beauty series imitate the various masks we use in our

7

everyday life to hide and protect ourselves. Compared to early paintings showing a clean portrait, I was surprised by how easily a personality can be hidden by small adjustments. Beauty, for me personally, also has a healing effect and in turn became a harbinger for the following ‘Transformation’ series.

Can you tell us more about the inspiration behind your latest series?

My previous series is named ‘Transformation’. I had asked myself how people deal with the search for identity and personal conflicts. The series explores the process of change – a fundamental and inevitable circumstance of life. Having gone through major changes myself, I examined the moment of personal transformation: the struggle, the hope and the fear. This new body of works aims to visually capture a feeling that is difficult to explain, but universally felt.

When you are working, what’s the studio ambience? Quiet or musical? Early bird or night owl?

While working in the studio I listen to Spotify all the time and I am not a morning person. I enjoy getting up late, having a coffee latte with a chocolate croissant and working until late in the night.

How do you position yourself in the current German art landscape?

The German art landscape is all about academic degrees, names and concepts. It is very intellectual. I am a self-thaught artist, painting realistically, focusing on the emotions in art, referring to old-school painters...

I might be falling through the cracks of the German art scene.

Is there any particular work by other artists that you would want to have?

I have just started a collection of other artists’ works. I have a beautiful bronze torso by Carole Feuerman, a brilliant and strong American artist from New York. I own a paper gun sculpture by brilliant Turkish artist Irfan Önürmen and a light sculpture by the emerging young German artist Stefan Marx. But there are so many more works I admire.

Can you talk about your on-going and future projects? What artistic challenges would you like to take on?

I am very excited for 2018 and my upcoming projects. I will exhibit in Asia, at Opera Gallery Hong Kong for the first time, join Art Central Hong Kong and will have my first solo show at the Museum of Modern Art in Germany.

As this is your first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, do you have any words for the local audience? 香港你好！我很期待見到你！ I hope the translation is correct... but I am really looking forward to meeting you Hong Kong. We will have a blast !!!

8

Der Mann und die Zeit, 2012

Die Moderne, 2013

Die Muse, 2012

Fallin Angel, 2014

the works

of Mike Dargas elude a clear temporal distinction. Even if the representations can stand as indications of a contemporary Western zeitgeist, the images lose their temporal determinability through their static transience and acquire an essence of infinity.

Above all, his most recent paintings impress with their oversized and hyperrealistic representation of people. The artist plays with the effect on the observer right from the beginning. Although the works appear to be photographs from a distance, on closer observation the large scale of the portrait establishes the macroscopically precise observation of the artist and his masterly intercourse with colour shading and colour shift rich with nuances that sharpen the view of the picturesque.

Mike Dargas, born in Cologne in 1983, stood out as early as his childhood years with his talent for drawing.

Through his mother, the young schoolboy discovered the works of Salvador Dalí, Caravaggio and HR Giger, who acted as an influential example for him as he moved towards adolescence. He attracted the keenest interest at only eleven years old, when he painted on the cathedral square in Cologne with adaptations of master works in pastel and chalk. Besides the many and varied techniques which he made his own through independent study and an adult class, he also began to develop an interest in three-dimensional art. During his training as a carpenter, he created sculptures from wood and metal. His passion continued with painting, to which he turned with an intense focus in his mid-twenties, mainly through his work as a tattooist. With his particularly refined portraits in the style of the Old Masters, Mike Dargas won numerous awards and distinctions on the tattoo scene and attracted attention worldwide, above all due to the rapid distribution of his works through social media. He has used social media to eagerly share his enthusiasm for perfecting painting techniques and high art in the trompe-l’œil style.

10

Dargas created personal feelings and dreams from the reservoir. The debate regarding the relationship between art and reality was already evident in his early oil paintings. They are thus characterised in particular by surreal combinatorial analysis of figures and representations of architecture, see Der Mann und die Zeit, 2012 ( The Man and Time), Die Moderne, 2013 ( The Modern). In these works, the backdrop is

Seek and Destroy, 2014

Genesis, 2014

The More I See, 2015

Virgo, 2016

restricted to implied surreal spaces together with individual portraits. Since architecture and figure are often emphasised in equal measure in a scene, the active figures are the ones which appear to have their gaze turned inwards and are only accompanied by a few accessories, more like on the imaginary stage of a dream than in a real setting.

His images of men, which came shortly after, see Knastbruder I – III, Seek and Destroy (Jailbird I – III, Seek and Destroy), all from 2014, demonstrate an affinity to Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro (ital. ‘light-and-dark painting’) and place the inner conflict as the central motif in the foreground. Mike Dargas always manages to convey an intimate atmosphere into the pictorial space and deal with his subjects on a real level. Dargas places his motif, e.g. Die Muse, 2012 ( The Muse) in front of a dark background, from which it emerges mysteriously. He adopts Caravaggio’s use of light and enhances the drama through the interplay of light and shadow, nuanced by dark, heavy shadows and glaring spotlights, raised sections and highlights. These stark light-dark contrasts create a great vividness, lending the figures a particularly lively appearance.

In the dark sections, Dargas indicates yet another landscape (Die Moderne, 2013 or Fallin Angel, 2014), or he completely foregoes background and spatial depth. In this way, the attention of the observer is not distracted from any additional details. The composition is focussed particularly on the protagonists, even if in the works Seek and Destroy, 2014, and Genesis, 2014, pictorial elements are already employed as stylistic masking devices, which in his subsequent portraits of women come into play independently.

As a result, since 2015, Dargas has increasingly devoted himself to the representation of extremely detailed, oversized portraits in a large format, whose light background becomes a new feature, apart from a few exceptions ( The More I See, 2015 and Virgo, 2016). The back of the painting is now worked through in sfumato (ital. ‘blurred’) and causes the motif to emerge softly from the background. The blurriness that is still visible at the edges of the head is lost subtly as we move towards the centre of the face, where it reveals a macroscopically precise representation.

Together with this vivid effect, the hyperrealistic representation of the portrait in combination with liquid is stylistically influential. Either the face emerges from the liquid, as in Carpe Diem, Baby, 2015 or liquids such as honey (first seen in The Ecstasy of Gold, 2014) and melted chocolate (first seen in

11

Carpe Diem, Baby, 2015

The Ecstasy of Gold, 2014

Black Gold, 2015

Wherever I May Roam, 2016

Black Gold, 2015) flow over the female face. The first impression of the apparent snapshots evokes erotic photography or still images from an erotic film. Dargas uses this to enhance the impact of the painting.

The representation of the face as a headpiece is thus shown in various positions such as in the frontal view, semi-profile and three-quarter profile, the lateral lower view and the top view. The young artist, who declares portrait painting the highest discipline in art, appears to have reached a high point in his career.

The representation of the beautiful female face can thus on the one hand be dealt with as the muse, and on the other as a metaphorical comparison of how we deal with the world in general. Above all, the two latter works mentioned above allegorise the debate on natural resources and the current struggle for crude oil and gold.

At the start of a new creative phase, Mike Dargas decided to show the eyes of his protagonists either closed or covered. Intimacy thus becomes the actual motif of the painting. Some women appear to be submerged in lust, while others have their view of the world impeded by the liquid. Observers have gone as far as to say that they see something sad in the images. The painter has managed to impressively evoke an element of attraction and sensitive interplay of emotions for those observing the work. However, his pieces are not only visually exciting, but also reflect the emotional and dramatic life of the painter at various points in time. Likewise, he also discusses social conflicts without directly expressing criticism. An indication of this can be seen in the title of the work partly inspired by Metallica song titles that the artist listens to while he works, for instance: The More I See, 2015 or Wherever I May Roam, 2016, which offers the observer an occasion and an opportunity to play their own intellectual game. Within the numerous conflicts of present times, the conscious experience of beauty has become essential for Mike Dargas’ genesis, with which the real person takes centre stage with his experiences and feelings.

12

He asks friends, acquaintances and models for ideas for new paintings, including the German top model Toni Garrn in 2016. On accepting the invitation to his studio, he uses photography to develop the concept for his large-format painting in one session. In an open and trusting atmosphere, he is able to emotionally experience the effect of his compositions himself and investigate individual compositional elements for their effect and intensity. Having looked at the photos, the artist begins the actual work using a pencil on

Toni I, 2016

Toni II, 2016

Toni III, 2016

the primed canvas. The representation of eyes is carried out first of all in oil, as these occupy the darkest surfaces and are also increasingly directed at the observer and act as a central design feature. Due to his constant workload, he is continually developing an independent perspective on the present, yet his pictures deal with painting itself. Through the oversized format of representation, the facial expression is especially intensified and the effect of the look reinforced. The most recent works have already been officially scaled down, causing sections of the images to appear unfinished.

We are thus curious as to which reality Mike Dargas will lean towards in future: surely a reality with its imagination, phantasmagoria, dreams, memories and invoked fragments.

Nicole Loeser

13

new works

every teardrop is a waterfall, 2017 oil on wooden panel 50 x 50 cm I 19.7 x 19.7 in

16

after forever, 2017 oil on wooden panel 50 x 50 cm I 19.7 x 19.7 in

18

look for the truth, 2017 oil on wooden panel 50 x 50 cm I 19.7 x 19.7 in

20

save your last goodbye, 2017 oil on wooden panel 50 x 50 cm I 19.7 x 19.7 in

22

drunk in love, 2017 oil on wooden panel 50 x 50 cm I 19.7 x 19.7 in

24

wild woman do, 2017 oil on wooden panel 50 x 50 cm I 19.7 x 19.7 in

26

life fully colored, 2017 oil on canvas 190 x 150 cm I 74.8 x 59.1 in

28

sweet dreams, 2017 oil on canvas 190 x 150 cm I 74.8 x 59.1 in

30

the wait, 2017 oil on canvas 140 x 100 cm I 55.1 x 39.4 in

32

golden age, 2017 oil on canvas 140 x 100 cm I 55.1 x 39.4 in

34

in bloom, 2017 oil on canvas 140 x 100 cm I 55.1 x 39.4 in

36

lithography

blossom B1, 2016 lithography on 300 g paper, edition of 30 + 10 AP signed, numbered and dated on recto 80 x 60 cm I 31.5 x 23.6 in

40

blossom GE1, 2015

blossom L1, 2016

lithography on 300 g paper, edition of 30 + 10 AP signed, numbered and dated on recto 80 x 60 cm I 31.5 x 23.6 in

lithography on 300 g paper, edition of 30 + 10 AP signed, numbered and dated on recto 41 80 x 60 cm I 31.5 x 23.6 in

42

life fully colored, 2017

sweet dreams, 2017

lithography on 300 g paper, edition of 30 + 10 AP signed, numbered and dated on recto 80 x 65.5 cm I 31.5 x 25.8 in

lithography on 300 g paper, edition of 30 + 10 AP signed, numbered and dated on recto 80 x 65.5 cm I 31.5 x 25.8 in

43

biography

exhibitions

Inspired by artists such as Dalí, Caravaggio and Gottfried Helnwein, Mike Dargas studied various techniques and since his youth developed a passion for realism, which he narrowed down to hyperrealism over the years.

2018 2017 2016 2015

2014 2013

Born in 1983 currently living and working between his native Cologne and Los Angeles. Along with his first drawings, Mike Dargas started making oil paintings from a young age, works which he started selling to friends of his mother. At the age of eleven, he exhibited his talent publicly, drawing Old Master paintings with pastels and chalk on the pavement in front of the Cologne Cathedral. He then got accepted in an art school, from which he graduated after a year and a half; the only child in a class of adults. There, he learnt different techniques, and received a training that led him to master three dimensional arts, like wooden sculpture. In his early twenties, he built himself a solid reputation in the tattoo scene and won numerous prizes and awards.

The extremely precise oil painting technique gives, like photography, a snapshot of the moment. The artist studies his subjects with such intensity, that each portrait pictures a profile of increasingly intimate closeness. In his portraits, Mike Dargas is not limited to certain types. He paints young and old, beautiful and dark, fragile and strong people. They are lost in their thoughts, show inner conflict or convey a unique or even holy calmness.

The perfection of his technique serves his goal to tend towards the perfect image, reaching for the soul within each single one. Through his works, Mike Dargas challenges us to take a closer look, to understand the nature of human beings and to question our own emotional perception.

Healing Beauty, Opera Gallery, Hong Kong (solo) Transformation, C24 Gallery, New York, USA (solo) Mike Dargas, Opera Gallery, London, UK (solo) Enric Miralles meets Mike Dargas, Palau de Casavells, Spain (solo) Mike Dargas - Malerei, Galerie Benjamin Eck, Munich, Germany (solo) Opera Gallery, London, UK (group) Neue Photokunst & Friends, Galerie Display, Cologne, Germany (group) Freud lässt grüssen, Galerie Atelier I.S., Walhorn, Belgium (group)

fairs 2018

2017

2016

2015

2013

Art Central, Opera Gallery, Hong Kong Art New York, C24 Gallery, New York, USA Art Miami, C24 Gallery, Miami, USA Contemporary Art Fair Istanbul, C24 Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey POSITIONS, Whiteconcepts Gallery, Berlin, Germany Art New York, C24 Gallery, New York, USA Art Miami, C24 Gallery, Miami, USA Contemporary Art Fair Istanbul, C24 Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey Art New York, C24 Gallery, New York, USA Art Karlsruhe, whiteconcepts, Karlsruhe, Germany Contemporary Art Fair Istanbul, C24 Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey Wiener Kunst und Antiquitätenmesse, Contempo Fine Art, Vienna, Austria Stroke Art Fair, Munich, Germany Art’pu :l Kunstmesse, Cologne, Germany ARTig, Kommandeursburg, Cologne, Germany

museum 46

2018 Museum Modern Art, Hünfeld, Germany

47

Coordinators: Aurélie Heuzard, Lou Mo Author: Nicole Loeser Designer: Élisabeth Chardin Images: © Mike Dargas Portraits of the artist: © Traegi

With special thanks to Mike Dargas and Anisá Teclebrhan

operagallery.com W Place, 52 Wyndham Street, Central, Hong Kong I T. + 852 2810 1208 I hkg@operagallery.com

january 2018

mike dargas

mike dargas healing beauty

healing beauty

operagallery.com

2017-CouvertureDEF_MikeDargas-OG-HongKong.indd 2

06/12/2017 18:40