Jens Hausmann sets his sights on global modernity

The painter Jens Hausmann grew up in Meiningen, Germany and studied under Professor Ralf Kerbach, a renowned objective realist artist, at the University of Dresden. His latest, energy-charged works combine his approach to modern architecture with an artistic fascination for space, landscape, and perspective. Surrounded by fantastically colored landscapes, the modern houses he “constructs”, are like dream homes. The images combine a colorful, intense aesthetic with popular magazine and advertising images. Together with a soft, almost hot sunlight, this gives the scenes a southern air.

Screening Room & House Keeping

Hausmann is particularly interested in the elaborate reproduction of distant worlds, such as the continent of South America, and especially the modernist buildings of Brazil. They are scenarios of artistically idealistic projects for future metropolises, formed in part on the drawing boards of architects like Oscar Niemeyer.

Here, painting meets the lucid observation of architectural rationalism. It distinguishes itself through the realistic depiction of materials such as concrete and the broad, reflective glass surfaces with their views in from, and out to, the surrounding landscape. The carefully measured “architectural quadrature” is preserved in freely floating terraces, parking areas, and driveways, and also in the gardens with their generous swimming pools, and the surrounding vegetation. The metal window frames are clearly marked, serving to frame our vision and celebrating the view out and the reflections within, both from near and far. The scenery in front of the building is replicated and reproduced: not only in the suspended windows and doors that reach to the floor, but also in the large water surfaces in the garden.

The inhabitants are rarely visible. Though they are missing from these dream homes of modern architectural heritage, they leave behind status symbols and traces of an exalted existence. Objects such as reclining chairs or cars, designed to the last detail, seem to have a character between décor and tested certainty. The comfort of the home is clearly missing, however. Though we feel invited, as if we are visitors, we also feel voyeuristic. Jens Hausmann opens to the viewer what is usually hidden from view by tall boundaries. He lets us live out our curiosity for the unknown, or simply revel in memories, experiences, and mini adventures. Above all, the excessive colours produce a kaleidoscope of nature that conquers and takes possession of parts of the architecture just as it does to the viewer’s gaze. The reality and authenticity of these images is striking: They let us feel the warm light and smell the garden air, yet also allow us to travel to a new world. We are visiting a scene of post-modernism that lets us become witnesses to a multi-layered globalisation. Continually changing and adapting, the house is on the one hand static, on the other it is marked by the clash of new perspectives and image spaces. The relationship between presence and absence alone ensures a visit full of longing and the emergence of new visions.

The Garden

In Hausmann’s series The Garden, there are no architectural forms in sight. Here, lushly growing nature has taken the upper hand. In a symphony of luminous green, blue, orange, and violet, one wild plant is layered atop another until the individual subsystems unite as one cohesive work of art. Hausmann whisks the viewer away to enchanted mental destinations located somewhere between fiction and reality. His painterly signature style is clear to see; his oil paintings are lively and inviting, drawing us in. The idyllic garden grows and thrives in its own rhythm. This LUMAS artwork consists of three sections of slightly different width.

Christina Wendenburg

1994-2000	Studies of sculpting and painting at HFBK Dresden
2001	Diploma Painting
	Lives in Berlin

Solo Exhibitions (Selection)

2012	minimal, Galerie Schuster, Potsdam  Blind Windows, Von Frauenberg Art Gallery, Düsseldorf
	Fluchtlinien, Kunstverein Barsinghausen
2011	Diktatur, DSV Kunstkontor, Stuttgart
	Der Unsagbare Raum, Kunstverein/ Kunsthaus Meiningen
2010	35 Fragments, Galerie Schuster, Berlin
2009	Fragile, Galerie Schuster, Miami, USA
2008	Kalt, Kalt – Heiss, Heiss, Galerie Schuster, Frankfurt
2007	Traum von Haus, Frederik Foert Galerie, Berlin
2006	Himmel, Wssser, Baum, Haus, Mensch – Ein Spiel, Krings-Ernst Galerie, Cologne
	Heimkino, Kunsthalle Vierseithof Luckenwalde
2005	Deutsche Welle, Galerie Foert Garanin, Berlin
2003	Zwischenraum, Galerie Foert Garanin, Berlin
2002	Psychonews, Spielhaus Morrison Galerie, Berlin
2001	Narkose, Galerie Jette Rudolph, Berlin
2000	Spirit and Borders, Galerie Jette Rudolph

Group Exhibitions (Selection)

2012	Der Unsagbare Raum/ Part II, ARD Hauptstadtstudio, Berlin
	Konstellationen, Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin
	Mixed Signals/ Part I, Galerie Z, Stuttgart
2011	Ich bin ein Berliner, Dezer Schauhalle, Miami, USA
	In Between Days/ Von Frauenberg Art Gallery, Düsseldorf
	Kernfragen, Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin
	ABC of Painting, Galerie Schuster, Berlin
2010	Malerei, Galerie Dr. messner, Trossingen
	Berliner Salon, Europäischer Kunsthof Ficht, Aachen
	Art Fair 21 Köln, Galerie Schuster, Köln
2009	Scope New York, Galerie Schuster, New York, USA
2008	Scope Miami, Galerie Schusten, Miami, USA
2007	Arcadia, Tactile Bosch, Cardiff, UK
	Salty Tears, Frederik Foert Galerie, Berlin
	Scope Miami, Galerie Schuster, Miami, USA
2006	The fine art of separating people from their money, Frederik Foert Galerie, Berlin
	Art Peking – Frederik Foert Galerie
	Art Fair Köln, Art Karlsruhe, Galerie Kreuzer + Roy, Heimbach
2005	Time Zones, Krings Ernst Galerie, Cologne
	Cars and Races, Frederik Foert Galerie, Berlin
2004	Pintura, Galeria Fabio Penacall, Salvador, Brasil
	Art Frankfurt, Galerie Foert
2003	Raum 3, Galerie Garanin, Essen
2001	Art Frankfurt, Galerie Jette Rudolph
	Diplomausstellung, Ocotogon HFBK Dresden