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. Both mysterious and revealing, the water’s surface reflects its surroundings while simultaneously drawing the viewer’s attention into the depths beneath. Organic forms converge to form a dynamic ecosystem, nature’s cycle of life, death, and regeneration. Meyer’s objective is to transform these elements, dissolving the imagery into layers of light and color.
Meyer’s painting method emulates the properties of water itself; diluted oil paint runs and falls across the canvas, investing the medium with the transparency and ephemeral quality of watercolor. His paintings show us a world that is more fluid, even rippling, as if on some magical screen or the surface of an undulating pool. There is a pervasive sense of peacefulness and at the same time, an inexplicable unrest, as if in a strange dream.1
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.
A fully illustrated catalogue is available.
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1 Spanke, Daniel. “Capturing the Flow,” in Matthias Meyer: Vol. 2. Munich: Galerie Andreas Binder, 2006.