Painter and sculptor David Uessem's oeuvre and work is based around growing because of and with his art, taking the viewers along in this viewing process but also repelling them again and again.
His large-scale paintings are unmistakable, unique. The artist has long developed his clear Uessem style - a distinctive mix of a hyperrealist style of painting and surreal composition. Again and again, we see the fascinating and confusing combination of a human being and his or her mask.
The natural flesh tint is joined by another, an artificial, material: shiny foil draped around half the face, or shimmering gold, sparkling jewels or bouquets of flowers shaped liked motifs taken from pop culture, such as Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse or a crown. David Uessem uses these elements throughout his work as props that even leave the two- dimensional space of the painting, moving into and attempting to conquer the viewers' space in the shape of sculptures. The fact that David Uessem has also turned to sculptures once again shows his curiosity, dedication and conscious exploration of medial and material limits.
The more realistic Uessem's painting style, the stranger is the way bodies and objects meet in his works. One series is characterized by a significant reduction of elements. We see a single face en face, against a neutral single-colour background, equipped with a dominant attribute, such as in "Firebird" (2021) or "Resistance" (2021). Another series, "Family Affairs" (2019), shows group portraits that are planted in an unreal space. The people in the portrait have disco balls, wear spacesuits or carry brown teddy bears.
What we see does not usually look at us in David Uessem's works, but we experience his point of view. He essentially offers viewers a school of seeing and perceiving. He shows us up close how he technically dissects the gold in the image. The folds of the shiny foil become almost imperceptible brush strokes. If we take a step back, the sensual materiality unfolds. Each work, each material impresses with perfection and completeness.
At the same time, what is behind remains hidden, masked - we see nothing but the surface. As viewers, we experience an enjoyable perceptual game between visibility and concealment, between obviousness and masking - and maybe not least a battle between art and reality.
David Uessem stands out with his high expectations of technical excellence. Having developed his oil and acrylic glaze techniques himself, he can create exact colour properties and thus work with precision on the genesis of his paintings for weeks. With his canvasses sometimes primed in colour and his pencil underdrawings, Uessem stands in the tradition of old and new masters in art history. David Uessem's hyperrealist painting style is characterized by great precision and his use of classic glaze layers.
David Uessem acquired his precision and eye for the perfect subject when he studied illustration at the IBKK in Bochum, Germany. Having been almost bored with retouching advertisement images, he turned to painting techniques with passion and curiosity and began to experiment with painting, exploring and controlling paint as a material. That is why he started studying fine arts with a focus on painting at the same art school in Bochum, where he completed his degree as a master-class student under the Chinese painter, Professor Qi Yang.
David Uessem lives and works in his studio, a former church, near Cologne, Germany.
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