Dieter Bauer is an Austrian contemporary artist who works in a distinctive and recognisable realist style to create highly atmospheric, filmic scenes. The works in this exhibition are selected from four different series, namely ‘Mystery’, ‘In Dreams’, ‘Lumberton’ and ‘Moral’, created between 2006 and 2019. 

The paintings in this selection lie on the trajectory between the serene and the uncanny. Visually impressive with their bold, bright colours, scenic settings and beautifully dressed subjects, these pieces carry a fascinating sense of tension; the audience is presented with a scene that is unclear, interspersed with clues that seem to lead somewhere but do not provide any definitive answers. 

The human figures in these works are created in Dieter Bauer’s specific style; realistic, but with slightly exaggerated and enlarged features. Their expressions are sharp and capture the attention of the viewer, but they do not give away much of what the subject is thinking or feeling. As such, some distance is placed between the subject and the viewer. 

The artworks in this selection carry a complexity and nuance. Dieter Bauer’s compositions deconstruct the relationship between dream and reality, by focusing on the moments where the two appear indistinguishable. He brings into dialogue the conscious and unconscious levels of human perception, and opens this dialogue with his audience too. The oneiric quality of his paintings gives way to a deeper reading of the gaps, uncertainties and questions that come to mind as one considers what it means to be able to perceive. 

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