Biography
born 1989 in Stuttgart
lives and works in Leipzig
After receiving a link of Christian Bär’s new paintings, I began scrolling to understand what was in front of me. It certainly felt natural seeing them through the screen and it never even dawned on me that anything could be different in real life. It appeared like he was convincing me that every-thing is, everything felt and shouted exactly how he portrayed it.
In his new Exhibition ‘Angst und Familie’, one can be found driving through a gamified memory lane, where all of the elements are condensed to their purest, most concrete form - an outline of a unicorn, a violet whimsical flower or an electric peach fracture that seemed to resemble a glimpse of Bär’s paint tab from a time when The Trip, The beach, The Escape, The Dispute or The Fear happened. All of these titles are translated into a new visual vocabulary, a palette once influenced by the daily life of a German boy from the 2000s – it’s like Disney Channel meets MTV Viva, but now entirely surrounded by the contemporary online.
The copy/paste motifs, overlays and strokes overlap on the canvas, threads of burgundy red pump through royal blue flowers while vector graphics protrude between rebellious turquoise lines, describing an intimate yet universal experience.
The showcased pieces feature minimalist backgrounds that successfully support Bär’s continuous recompositioning, initiated on his iPad and then transferred to canvas. Within these backgrounds, one can discern the artist’s childhood friends, confessions, and references, reflecting his admiration for contrasts and juxtapositions. Fear and Family is about get-ting older, resisting to fully settle down but enjoying the order that was carefully created.