While the natural world plays a profound role in Meyer’s work, he achieves in its depiction a synthesis between the representational and the abstract. In this recent body of work, Meyer continues his ongoing examination of aquatic environments – ponds and lakes, fens, bogs, marshes. Both mysterious and revealing, the water’s surface reflects its surroundings while simultaneously drawing the viewer’s attention into the depths beneath. Enigmatic, distorted evocations of branches and decomposing tree trunks are glimpsed below, while undulating reeds and grasses float above. Meyer’s objective is to transform these elements, dissolving the imagery into layers of light and color.
Meyer’s paintings resonate with the words of Rachel Carson:
To the human senses, the most obvious patterning of the surface waters is indicated by color. The deep blue water of the open sea far from land is the color of emptiness and barrenness; the green water of the coastal areas, with all its varying hues, is the color of life…. The yellow and brown and green hues of the coastal waters are derived from the minute algae and other microorganisms so abundant there.
Matthias Meyer was born in Göttingen, Germany in 1969. He studied art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Gerhard Richter and was named "student of honor" (Meisterschüler) in Richter’s last master class in 1994. Meyer was also a guest student in 1994 at London’s Chelsea College of Art, and in the same year received the distinguished Max Ernst Award of the City of Brühl. In 1995, Meyer was the German laureate of the European Art Competition of the Schweizer Bankverein in London. Matthias Meyer lives and works in Germany.
