„Ewig Rastlos“ Fredy Utopia

In the organizer's words:

Opening 13.12. at 6 pm

Music by Sonic Boogie from Paderborn - analog and digital spherical sounds

Finissage 18.01 6 pm

Artist talk with Fredy Utopia and David Riedel (Museum Peter August Böckstiegel)

Opening hours over the holidays see www.elsa-art.de

The colorful, emotional creatures in Fredy Utopia's paintings, drawings and collages present their bodies, but they hold back their gaze - often wearing masks. Lust for life and sadness alternate, the joy of the body as well as the dismay at having to define oneself again and again. In the artist's first solo exhibition, one looks into this rich and touching world of images like into a kaleidoscope in which the artistic inner world reveals itself in ever new facets.

Fredy Utopia's inspirations are just as varied and colorful as his works: mythical creatures, fairy tales, anime, the wild creatures of Hieronymus Bosch, but also historical textbooks on the animal world, from which the etching of a whale with human eyes gazes at you. Fredy Utopia rejects the separation between humans and animals; they all belong to nature. In Paraguay, the land of his birth, there are many tales about mixed forms of humans and animals. There are also depictions of this kind in Greek mythology and Hinduism, such as the god Ganesha with an elephant's head.

There are often symbols that refer to plants or the cosmos and symbolize the connection with the world without naming a specific place. The background is flat and monochrome. The figures in the smaller collages sit against an abstract background in worlds of color that can be pastel, earthy or brightly colored. In the panel paintings, the figures are taken up and woven into a more complex ornament that might remind you of the Garden of Eden, were it not for the skull and crossbones right next to it. Secular and psychedelic symbols alternate. Their meaning is not fixed, but invites the viewer to link personal sensations.

Fredy Utopia works impulsively and out of a desire to express his dreaming, searching self. Each figure in his pictorial worlds also embodies a part of himself. Sometimes he works with acrylic on canvas, sometimes with colored pencils and oil pastels on paper - materials he became familiar with at an early age. He establishes a connection to his "inner child" and expresses it.

Fredy Utopia moved with his family from Colonia Friesland in Paraguay to East Westphalia as a child. The 27-year-old artist received his training at the music and art school in Bielefeld. This is his first solo exhibition.